Memoirs Of J

You’ve probably heard of the “freshman 15,” right?  It’s a stereotype about what typically happens in a kid’s first year of college – they gain weight due to the availability of food, late night pizzas, sodas, and all that scrumptious stuff.

Well when I was a freshman in college (yeah, way back then in ’96 – shut up, I’m old now), I didn’t  gain 15.  I didn’t even  gain 5.  I lost about 20 or more!

It wasn’t anything intentional.  I was an average weight (I mean normal for my height – not average as in “average obese American”) going in and didn’t have any problems or image issues about weight at all.  It was literally something I never gave a thought to.

I think it was a combination of all the walking on MSU’s sprawling campus, coupled with the fact that I rarely ate breakfast, was often too busy for much of a lunch, and picked at the cafeteria “food” at dinner.  I didn’t avoid junk foods, and was effectively addicted to Mountain Dew.  I was admittedly underweight and it continued for my entire college tenure.

I didn’t work out, ate …one could say, poorly (chips, fast food, soda, pop tarts, etc), yet couldn’t gain an  ounce to save my life.  Really – friends, family, and other acquaintances would accuse me of being anorexic – I never was – and tried to shove donuts or other treats at me,  which I would happily devour.  Nothing ever happened.  I just chalked it up to luck and a fast metabolism and went about with my habits.

Well fast forward to now… UGH.  I’m not fat, don’t get me wrong.  I would not let that happen.  I’m in the “normal” range for my height now.  But I do need to limit my sweets.  I restrict myself from having coke or mt dew except for on occasion, much to my dismay because I unfortunately love soda, especially those two kinds.  I have to get a work out in, ideally every day just to maintain my current weight.  The problem is I would like to lose a few pounds and get toned.  But I hate restricting myself, and I have a hard time finding time to work out these days since I need to wait until J is in bed for the night, and  by then I am pretty exhausted.

I blame the desk job.  When I began working as a cube jockey after college is when I actually started putting on a few pounds.  These days, I try to get out and at least take a walk or something during breaks, but it is tough.  I’m not seeing much improvement, and it’s not like I really eat that much that I could reduce food intake.  I’d be starving!  Desk jobs guarantee an expanding ass.   No doubt about it…

So I guess they were right about enjoying being able to eat whatever I wanted at a young age.  I scoffed at the time, but yeah… I’m finding that they were correct, and it does actually start catching up with you.