Cheater, cheater bacon-stuffed crust pizza eater

Life can be awfully unfair at times. 

Look, I know won the lottery in that I'm a white male, born in America, and given a bounty of opportunities to succeed (some of which I thankfully jumped on). So yes, I've been lucky beyond all measure. Almost. It's like I hit 5 of the 6 necessary numbers. And by that I mean I've lived with a lifelong struggle with weight.

I came into this world at a whopping 10 lbs. My parents would joke that when my mother was pregnant, they were strolling around the Bronx Zoo. When they passed by the elephant section, her water broke.

No trauma there, right?

When my brother joined the ranks, my father often referred to me as, "the Big One." As in, "Isabel (my mother) tell the big one to get off his fat ass and mow the lawn ." (All 3/4 of acre of it)

I know parenting has gone through seismic changes, but 50-60 years ago that's how it was done in New York and the greater Tri-State area. It was all part of helping a kid develop a thick skin. In my case that thick skin also covered excessive layers of subcutaneous fat.

So wouldn't you know it, after so many years trying the Atkins, Weight Watchers, Lemonade enemas and countless reps with Tony Horton and P90X, the brainiacs at Pfizer or J&J or Merck produce a weight loss injection that actually works. 

Furthermore, as if the shedding of pounds wasn't easy enough with this new drug, they're making it available in pill form. It just feels wrong. In the same way it feels wrong to be on my Cannondale Super Six Evo, straining the bike chain to the max as I huff and puff up a particularly steep section of Flintridge, only to see some couch potato gliding up the hill with his $5000 E-assist bike.

There's something unsavory about that. It's like running the last mile of the marathon and then hanging a medal around your neck.

"Cheater, Cheater, Bacon-Stuffed Crust Pizza eater."

I don't want disparage anyone, including friends and family, who are taking the drugs, because better than most, I understand the struggle.

It only took me 68 years, but my battle with the bathroom scale is over. Fingers crossed. There's a certain amount of pride knowing I did it the hard way, my preferred route for just about everything. And I owe a great deal of thanks to this guy...

I did the math and I eat roughly twice my body weight in salmon over the course of a calendar year. I'll probably die of mercury poisoning. And of course, the scienticians who have put Jenny Craig on the streets, will have produced an antidote for that, the day after I'm called hope to rest.

Oh, and the day after that, they'll find a cure for male pattern baldness.