Confessions of an Endomorph

I have body issues.

Have since I was ten, some thirty four years ago.

As a result, I've been pitched in a life long battle. Truth be told I wasn't putting up much a fight in high school and college, but once I stepped foot in California I realized that life was about more than donuts and pizza.

Particularly the crap that passes for pizza in Los Angeles, with its soggy, sweetened crust, making it better suited for mopping up dirty floors than for human consumption.

Then I got bit by the fitness craze. I traded the cinnabuns, eclairs and beer bottles for steel cut oatmeal, eggwhites and barbells.

And light beer.
It wasn't as if I was going to stop drinking beer.

I started running and began a life long pursuit of bone spurs and plantar fascitis. Soon, I was doing 10K's, triathlons and marathons.

In the following two years, I dropped 45 lbs. And prowled Southern California in my tank top and 31 inch waist dungarees. OK, maybe prowled isn't the right word. I still lived with two other slobs in a beach adjacent flophouse, slept on a mattress thrown on the floor and drove a tiny Mazda pick up truck that had all the muscle of a lawnmower.

Nevertheless, through sheer determination and a ruthless exercise regimen that would send most men to an early grave, particularly the high school jocks who never picked me for their precious teams and who peaked in life way too early, I was moving in the right direction.

Or so I thought.

The stress of career, women and those damn beeping alarms from trucks going in reverse, made it impossible to maintain my 172 lbs. benchmark.

Later, in the 90's I recommitted myself and once again shed the weight that has hounded me since childhood. Friends and colleagues would often approach me with backhanded compliments.

"Rich, you're looking skinny. Too skinny."

They didn't want to say it, but the message was loud and clear.

"We think you're funnier when you're fat."

I bring this up because the other day, as I was pulling into the parking lot at the gym, I saw this brute of a man walking to his car.

Muscles? This guy's ears had muscles. He didn't so much walk as he swung one side of his body forward, then, capturing the momentum, followed it with the other side of his hulking mass. I didn't have time to snap a photo but Google Images is always there to the rescue.

He looked something like this.

Maybe I've been going about this the wrong way, I thought? I'll never be an Ecto or a Mesomorph. but, what if instead of losing weight I made a conscious effort to pack it on?

How cool would it be to walk the Earth and have others simply cower in fear at the sight of my 23 inch neck?

Men would ogle my tree trunk calves and curse their puny DNA.

Women would be besides themselves, itching to run their soft hands over my sculpted deltoids. They'd spot the wedding ring bolted to my fourth finger and think, "Damn that Debbie Siegel is a lucky woman."

Colleagues would stare at my veiny arms which would pronounce, in no uncertain terms, "Do not even think about fucking with my copy."

And think of all the money I'd save on dry cleaning. Because you can be sure once I chisel my body to resemble the guy pictured above, I'm going to be strolling into the office without a shirt. And maybe without pants.

This is gonna be good. Please pass the Creatine.