Bulges, Bears and Bicycles

It’s been a full-on crazy week again! But I bought a bike! And I've ridden it to work...twice, even. I also started the South Beach Diet and I am concocting an evil scheme (translation: workout regimen) with my very buff co-worker to transform this flab into fab. I did have one stipulation to this whole eat-better/exercise thing: I will not quit smoking or quit drinking coffee. Maybe that's two stipulations, but I am not becoming one of those healthy people you see doing healthy things living healthy lives. Hell, no!! My goal to eliminate my gut is simply vanity and one last-ditch effort to avoid gay spinsterhood (at 33, I'm nearing Golden Girls status). See, boys don't make passes at boys with large asses.

Learn more about bears here!

Last week, two different advertisers asked me if I was a bear and that sent me into a total tailspin. Now, don't get me wrong. I think bears have their place in the whole rainbow spectrum of love, tolerance and understanding. But I realized that the 40+ extra pounds is inconsistent with the occasionally shallow but well-meaning pseudo-intellectual man-about-town image that I am trying to create. Fundamentally, bears (and their admirers) like their guts. I do not. I just got lazy and stopped going to Jazzercise (Yes! I loved step aerobics) and started eating crap. I hate to admit that I just gave up, but I did. I think it was around the time of a heart-break....and I just relinquished control of my life and began a very special friendship with Taco Bell, Moon Pies and Tropical Punch Kool Aid.

Being overweight in gay-boy land has always been pretty rough. I remember a number of occasions when I was jeered and mocked about my weight in various gay bars (getting thrown out of a gay bar doesn't do wonders for the self-esteem - but being ridiculed was simply devastating). In my early twenties I retaliated to that hatefulness by becoming a club kid. It was simple. I could sew. I made crazy outfits. I was outrageous. And the boys cow-towed to my Lacroix inspired shenanigans. Youth and glitter and drugs and alcohol superceded my gut and it was all fairly manageable, until clubbing got out of control (so very Lifetime Television for Women, I know...but I was young). I walked away from the scene and the platforms were put away (except for a few times a year).

I should've know last month (when this photo was taken) that my candy habit had gotten out of control. The concept for the tie made me giggle (an AIDS benefit with a chocolate theme).but I effortlessly consumed 5 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in half an hour.

Youthful dewiness has been replaced by grey hair and a somewhat cynical outlook. If you don't have doe eyes, being doughy just sends you to the back of the line. And when I was asked if I was a bear, something snapped in the ole-noggin. I walked up to my co-worker who goes to the gym three times a week and said "Change me." He though I was joking at first. The first day I rode my bike to work and declined a chocolate chip cookie, he realized I was serious.

I actually hate to admit that some sort of exercise every day this week (along with the not-eating crap) has made me feel a little livelier. A little bouncier in the step. So as I traverse my fourteen-day stint of no carbs, enjoy your Easter candies - I have a few hours of bicycling, ab crunches and free weights to look forward to this holiday weekend.