Fuck Life

It's finally official! I'm no longer just plain old fat, but I'm actually obese, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. A person is considered obese when there body mass index, or BMI, is above 30. At 5'9" and 219 pounds, my BMI is 32.3, placing me squarely into the "obese" category. But hey, on the bright side, at least I'm not 'morbidly obese', which is the distinct honor bestowed upon anyone with a BMI of over 40. Give me a couple years though, and maybe I can get there.

Thankfully, I'm a guy so I don't really have to worry all that much about looking like a fatass. I mean, look at Buddha, that dude's BMI was probably like 50 and he still stacked fame. And even at 219, I'm still not as fat as I was in my days anchoring the O-line for the 1997 Willows Honkers high school football squad, which was ULTIMATE fame. Besides, by present standards, if you're a guy over 20 and you can still look down and see your own dick you're doing pretty good, especially if, like me, you're not exactly John Holmes (though if you are packing some Holmes-esque heat, you could probably weigh 500 lbs and still wreck as much P as you wanted).

The problem, however, is that as comfortable as I am with looking like a fat piece of shit, being obese does carry with it a plethora of health related consequences. Just this week, in fact, a new study was released showing that individuals with an excess of visceral fat, the technical term for people with big ass beer guts, significantly raise their odds of developing dementia or Alzheimer's later in life. One could argue, of course, that perhaps Alzheimer's is the ultimate form of Zen (thus explaining the obese nature of the Buddha) but I would hope that Nirvana doesn't involve adult diapers and bed restraints. And even if it was, you still have to live long enough to see it, which is hard when you're suffering the other ill effects of obesity, which is basically every bad thing that could possibly happen to a person: heart failure, diabetes, cancer, depression, erectile dysfunction, stroke, carpal tunnel syndrome, infertility, gout, arthritis, sleep apnea, asthma, and so on into infinity. It seem like the only thing worse for your health than being obese is being dead.

Thus, I am going to join the rest of America in the ultimate cliche middle-age pursuit: losing weight. In order to get myself into the healthy range of BMI, I need to lose about 50 pounds. I could accomplish this by meticulously crafting a diet regimen, following it diligently and adding in ample amounts of exercise and rest, while cutting out booze and caffeine and all those tight-gripping vices in my life. But that shit would suck. So instead I'm looking to do it the modern way, by acquiring myself an eating disorder. Anorexia is passe. Bulimia is too much work. But there's a new disorder making the rounds these days, one specifically catered to my lifestyle: drunkorexia. Drunkorexics replace food in their diet with booze, which besides just making them the funnest people to be around EVAR, also usually helps them stay trim, with all the puking, running from the guy you just tried to start a fight with, getting put in jail, etc. Genius! Ever better, recent studies have shown that moderate intake of alcohol actually helps prevent Alzheimer's, and if a little helps, I'm sure a lot is even better! My future is looking brighter already.

On Second Thought: The only thing better than eating a huge meal, or going out and getting drunk, is doing both at the same time, or at least in rapid succession. Fuck it. I don't care if I end up a fat, old, demented, cancer stricken, infertile, impotent, sleepless diabetic, I'm still walking down, this very goddamn minute, getting a burrito, with extra cheese, and a 40 of Bud Light beer and celebrating the real essence of American Zen: mindful acceptance of the present moment, free of judgment, full of beer.