Lost Weight, Won Bet

"We are the pretty people
You wanna look like us
We are the pretty people
Give it up, give it up, give it up
We are the pretty people
Best of humankind
We are the pretty people
Flawless by design"

Pretty People (2004) by Dexter Freebish

This prodigal son returneth from Butterworth yesterday morning after a grueling 7 hours of unaccompanied, monotonous driving (though the scenery on the highway just south of Ipoh was real grand, I must mention). If you think that's hard, try upping the ante by starting the journey at 4:00 am after skipping an entire night's sleep. For those who were worried about my safety, fret no more. For those that have been hoping for news of my demise, sorry to disappoint.

Now, remember this post I wrote about a month ago? In that, I mentioned in passing that I wanted to lose 5.0 kilograms of hunk meat off my manly girth while I was half-vacationing in the de facto food capital of Malaysia - that is to say, I was taking on a task most Herculean. Overconfident much?

Nope.

I actually did it! I lost not 5 but 6 kilos in 5 weeks - dropping from 76 to 70. To put it into perspective, that's about 8% of my total body weight. It's quite a feat, even if it did not compare to that other time when I shed 9 kilos over 3 weeks through semi-starvation. Now, in case anyone starts shouting "ANOREXIC!" in my face, I want to point out that I have no body image problems whatsoever. In fact, anytime my weight goes above 74 kg, my body mass index falls squarely into 'overweight' territory. I am merely trying to maintain a healthy average, is all.

The story actually started at the beginning of this year when I discover that I am circling 77 kg after an impromptu weighing in at an ENT clinic where I was posted. In March, I told my grandmother that I'm turning vegan for a month and told her to adjust the dinner menu thus - though I still devour with gusto the flesh of many small and large animals outside of home throughout that period. I figured that turning the biggest meal of my day into rabbit feed would would be a big blow to my caloric intake, and at the same time, I also intensified my daily routine of crunches and push-ups which I started sometime at the end of last year (this, I'll explain why later).

All that only managed to lose me one measly kilo.

I was crushed.

Now in Penang, I revised my strategy and... no, I did not resort to dodgy weight loss supplements, but I did follow this regime;

• Order only the smallest possible portion whenever I eat out, and finishing only about three-fourths of it. If a serving is big, I split it with Phoebs. Strictly only 2 meals a day, and no snacks - or rather, I've replaced snacking with swigging fruit juices. Calorie-wise, I actually ate less than Phoebs on most days.
  
• Swim till exhaustion 4-5 times a week. And by 'swim' I mean 'flail about helplessly like I'm drowning' since I've never actually taken lessons.
  
• Crunches and push-ups every other day.
• Always choose the stairs when going up. My parking spot in Phoebs' condo building is on the 4th floor while her unit is on the 12th floor - so that's 2 to 3 times a day of massive stair-climbing because we both enjoy going out a lot. Moreover, the pool is on the 5th floor so after every dip, I have to drag my battered, limp body up seven entire floors as well.

When I return from yesterday to Malacca, my grandmother said that I look thinner. Would you believe that it had been 3 long years since the last time I hear anyone say that to me? Hold on, I think I got something in my eyes...

Somewhat related to this is a wager I made with Phoebe last year and the condition of that wager is; whoever manage to have visible semilunar lines first, he or she wins an iPod Touch (or another gadget of comparable value). Essentially, we're betting half of our very first paychecks here and I only did it because I needed a strong motivation to work out. As for Phoebs - well, she just wanted an iPod Touch very, very much.

For those that did not have the benefit of a whole year of human anatomy classes, the semilunar line is a curved groove running along the lateral border of each rectus abdominis muscle - and the two abdominal recti form what is colloquially known as the "six pack".

Meh, close enough.

I won that bet, naturally.

And no, I won't post up any pictures of my abs here because I swore never to bare my body to get ahead in life on the internet. You never know where those photographs might show up, you know.

Of course, being the awesomely magnanimous boyfriend that I am, I allowed to Phoebe to extend the conditions of the bet (after I have won) to whoever gets a six-pack first so she would have a chance to win it back. I never seem to have been able to collect my winnings from all the bets I have made in the past. A friend said that he would cut his penis off if I manage to get a girl to be my girlfriend while another friend said that he would eat 10 kg of his own shit. That girl would later become the Ex-Grrrfriend™ that I mention occasionally in this journal (and just in case anyone reading this is a star Olympic Conclusion-jumper; I was already going after her at the time, and yeah, my high school friends were dicks).

Now, that I think of it, the Ex-Grrrfriend™ also lost a bet to me once, and my prize was that I can ask her to do anything - anything at all - and she would have to comply. The main reason why I didn't feel like holding her up to her end of the bargain was because I lost a bet to her in turn - and that one says that I have to dress in drag in a maternity dress (complete with a faux-womb) and allow her to take photographs of me.

Over my dead, now-sexy body. Oh yeah.



One of the pretty people,
k0k s3n w4i