Weight Management in Long Term relationships

By BabaWilly

A rolly poly couple were cramped up in the economy air plane seats flying over the Sahara and they wondered two things in their private thoughts. Why was it taking so long to travel from London to Lagos and has the Sahara increased in length? Nay, I lie, for they contemplated a third thing which was this. Why has my spouse put on so much weight?
This same couple had flown on a similar aircraft for their honeymoon twenty three years ago and by all accounts the planes were not getting any smaller. They both had ample room on the way to there honeymoon and they had to make efforts to touch each other. They actually spent the whole flight leaning into each other and wondering why the airplane seats were so big!

Conversation today was difficult as one would expect in cramped conditions. They jostled for the arm rest, shouldered each other like rugby players and lamented they were not sitting in business class. The gentleman struggled to turn the pages of his newspaper and was further irritated by the added pressure of his lady’s bulk as she tried to read over his broad shoulder.

‘What are you reading?’ she asked.

‘An article on reincarnation’

‘Oh how silly. Why waste your time on such? How could anyone believe that I for instance would die and return as an elephant?’

Before he could pull on the reins, his tongue galloped forth, ‘darling, don’t confuse resurrection with reincarnation o’.  And that was the start of the quarrel on the flight home from a pleasant two weeks anniversary holiday.

This was however a fight involving experienced professionals involved in a long term sentence or relationship, whatever. They held their dignified silence but let rip in their hearts at each other. The lady went first. Her initial salvo of a dirty look had no effect as experience had taught our man to look elsewhere. He chose the bald patch on the passenger sitting in front.

‘You eh? You syndrome X-rated movie . Belly enormous Michelin man. Sumo lover. I no blame you. Na me you dey call elephant.  Nonsense, who do you think you are Mr Big stuff? You will never get my love. Nonsense and rubbish. You are but a shadow of the man I married.  A titanic monstrous shadow at that. Mary J Blige spoke for me when she sang, you remind me of a boy I once knew.  Nonsense’ she thought. Alas, our man was telepathic and he returned fire for fire.

‘I met you free and single; now you are wife and double. People keep their spare food in the fridge for later but you wear your fridge as an armour of fat. At least, the food is safe in your body. I trust your cold heart to keep it refrigerated’ His thoughts were interrupted by the air hostess.

‘Anything from the trolley?’ she asked.

‘Anything from the trolley darling?’ he asked turning sideways.

‘No sweetheart’ she replied sweetly and the hostess moved on.

‘You for chop now. Abi you dey diet? Nonsense. I wonder where my ex girl friend is? Perhaps you ate her. I recall a slim girl I married. Like the O’Jays sang, she used to be my girl. I wish she comes back one day. Had I known I would have inserted the clause, till fat do us part in our wedding vows’ he thought.

They flew in into Lagos, still engaged in ‘domestic argument’ all conducted in total silence.

Needless to say, the first week back home went on without any exchange of words. Our gentleman, who by now was well aware of his error, agreed to himself that he had committed the cardinal sin of actually verbalising what the whole world knew. Madam was overweight.  Tact demands that he never notices such matters and even if he is asked to read the weighing scale she is standing one wisdom demands that his only reply must be, ‘Let me get my glasses’.

And even if madam says ‘you don’t wear glasses’ his next option is to develop a lengthy coughing fit so severe that his partner becomes  convinced her she is about to become a widow. That always deflects from the weight issue. Of course madam is overweight, and she knows it. Oga sef is overweight and he does not care. When a couple stand in front of each other in an embrace and their tummies kiss before the lips do, there is usually only one conclusion to reach; they have enlarged with age.

The storage of profit from any venture leads to enlargement. I see the world getting smaller and the bellies getting bigger. This is the globalisation of apku belle. It has big disadvantages everywhere on the planet.  For one, you would never make it to the White house obese. The days of President William Howard Taft weighing 150Kg while in the Oval office are long gone. No we cannot. 1908 is gone forever.

While there is hope for a part as a villain, an obese James Bond will never happen likewise a fat Superman, Batman or Ironman. They just would not take-off the ground, no matter how much R Kelly they listen to. Moving on, what is the cause of the above couple’s difficulty? What is the solution to this couple’s difficulties? The answer is one and the same; children!

Children caused the guy’s problem. He always wished for a family from his youth and he devoted every waking hour to the attainment of his dream. He did his chores speedily as a teenager so as to have ample time for study. He foresaw that a university degree will provide for him a job which in turn would provide a good foundation for starting he journey into matrimony. And he was right.

In the first year of marriage he had a son and soon discovered that the son needed some play mates which led to two more kids in rapid succession. Things went well and he prospered at work. That meant a bigger television, a huge electric generator and a bigger belly, for he lived in a developing country. (Bigger televisions and bellies are paradoxically linked to poverty in so called developed countries,; so they tell me).

With the children calling him daddy he was indeed a ‘settled’ family man which meant his lady now fed him how she saw her mother poison or feed her father with calories he did not need,  which translates into a mountain of fufu, soup that consisted of 80 per cent saturated fats and 5 pieces of meat per meal. Not finishing his food was not an option. He even had to finish off the babies’ food as madam did not like waste.

He did not go out much and the television remote control was the only exercise he got.  He hated walking as he grew up believing worn shoes indicted poverty. Jogging was out of the question. He was a big boy and did not see any reason to display his breasts (Yes he now had them) and wobbling belly to the whole world. He now had a car and a driver. Gone were the days when he raised his metabolic rate by running after speeding molues  or carry pails of water about the place. Consigned to antiquity were the days he enhanced his core muscular strength on the way to work by balancing on the back of an okada. He now was wobbly, flabby and toneless. His newspapers and recharge cards where bought at home by throwing money downstairs through his bedroom window for his gate man to catch. Prosperity had robbed him of his fitness.

The Leptin which moved around his body telling him to eat when his fat stores were diminished and commanding him to stop eating once the fat began to accumulate had long since become ineffective in modulating him. He was a big boy, who had in addition to out- growing parental manipulation had also out grown Leptin’s influence. He was indeed the Sumo Lover, the Orobo-nary stores (a pet name coined by madam after hearing so much about the two Peters. Goal  keeper Fregene and Rufai of the Stationary Stores FC of Lagos).

The children also robbed their mother of her fitness. She ate for two during three pregnancies and still eats for two 19 years later as no one actually told her she could go back to single plates. In her time there was just planning for the baby and no planning for mum’s rehabilitation after the birth. With cooking, cleaning and running after three young ones, her weight or fitness was low priority.

All her married friends with kids were her size anyway and they greeted her with seasoned lies such as, ‘you look very well’ or ‘our oga is taking very good care of you’, or ‘you are looking very fresh’. What they really meant was ‘you look as fat as me, so I find it non- threatening in a heart-warming kind of way’. Gone are the days when she danced the night away with the love of her life. Those days when ‘fitting into that dress’ was priority.

In the current dispensation dressing up for bed was tying a large wrapper across the chest and heaping loads of dusting powder on the back and face. She had jeunsoked up herself into a formidable matriarch of adiposity. When she hears a good joke and starts to quiver, every single part of her part body wobbles with the ‘moves like Jagger’.

The solution is the children. Watching and behaving like the children. They are the ones who run when they should be walking, who jump on things and roll on the floor without a hint of embarrassment. They are the ones who don’t think before they act. The baby learning to walk just keeps on practicing those leg strengthening exercises. Even when they wake up at 3am for feeding, they keep the legs moving.

During the day they fall, cry and stand up and keep walking. They will do any exercise in public no matter their state of dressing. Once the adult can be like them, exercising his body always without fear of what other adults will think, they will start to lose weight.  Most of adults appear to eat without thinking and then think too much for too long before engaging in exercise. They think about the cost, their hatred of the gym, the time they don’t have, how silly they would look training, how old they would look, on and on it goes. Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking too too much. Kids like Nike just Do It!

Of course I will now go on to contradict myself and demonstrate the perils of not thinking. A man was once wheeled into the accident and emergency in a wheel barrow and dressed in a Batman costume moaning the place down. He was pushed in by a man in work clothes, perhaps a painter decorator.  They had in their company a concerned looking pretty lady dressed in a cat woman outfit complete with a long tail.

What happened was that this couple were in a very good mood and had had some wine. They decided to spice things up and got into their favourite hanky panky costumes that had not been worn for 15 years. Needless to say it was extremely tight as it was a few sizes too small. Now in their young wild days, this guy would climb on top the wardrobe and ‘fly’ into the waiting arms of his lover who lay supine on the bed.

Being athletic he would break his fall with his arms and feet and cat-woman never felt the force of his weight. That was then. On this night, cat woman said she saw a much bigger figure than she last remembered flying through the air which was frightening. It felt like a planet was casting a huge shadow over her and her life was about to be eclipsed.

Nature kicked in and she preserved herself the only way she could. She rolled herself into a ball. Bat man flew into her knees and elbows and felt something go ‘crack’ in his groin and chest. He became air borne again but this time flew to the hard floor. He lay motionless for a few seconds on the floor next to the bed.

On coming round he asked his lady not to call an ambulance as he did not want a scene on his street. They called the neighbour who was just returning from work and he brought them in his work van which had adequate leg room. On getting to the hospital car park Bat man could not walk so the wheel barrow in the back of the van was used to usher him in.

He fractured a few ribs and the right side of his pelvis. One of the nurses well known for talking with tact spoke out loud to the hearing of Cat woman thus, ‘Why jump from such a height at this age?’
Cat woman promptly answered, ‘we were not thinking’.

 

Babawilly
Dr Wilson Orhiunu
12-2-2014