A shoulder injury I have chronicled all too much has kept me from the gym, the office, and from general happiness all summer. It has not, however, kept me out of the burger joint, Mexican restaurant, or off the phone to my mom to complain. I have caught up on a lot of TV shows (watch “Game of Thrones,” it’s awesome) and have sacrificed my personal fitness. Normally I follow a routine of get “kind of thin and then kind of fat.” These past few weeks, I’ve been following the “get fatter and fatter” plan religiously.
Normally this wouldn’t really matter. A guy can be a little heavy and it’s fine as long as you don’t rock into Pure Yoga or go on a junk. But this year is different. This year we’ve been subject to swimmers and male gymnasts. Far worse was the influx of 110 Abercrombie & Fitch male models in August. I’ve been trained to easily dismiss male models as effeminate and uber-skinny and assume they’re just part of the carnival sideshow that’s Hong Kong. Not so for A&F—they drove around in a huge bus screaming, clapped in front of the Pedder Street store, and kept showing up at parties where they’d show off their abs. The number of girls taking pictures with four of them without shirts was kind of annoying, but when my straight male friends started doing it things got pretty weird. My normal “I’ll get abs by Christmas” routine was held up to a blinding A&F light and exposed me as the alcoholic, clipped-shoulder fattie than I really am.
Damn it, Abercrombie models! I pity you because your job is to stand around in your underwear with a bunch of dudes clapping like fucking morons (which FYI is basically being a stripper), but your stupid bodies and the wanton attention you get really cramps my style. My diet plans keep getting interrupted by birthday parties, going-away shindigs, and events so terrible the only recourse is to get drunk— but this doesn’t seem like the goal for long-term health. I’ll probably be hitting up another detox so I hope you’re ready for some article about how it destroyed my system but I got thin: like Kate Moss said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” (I doubt Ms. Moss has ever eaten a kebab at 4am.)
As I rehab my shoulder and continue to protect my abs under a thick layer of fat, I am starting to survey the scene around me. There’s the Genie Concepts juice cleanse, the i-Detox and SOL Wellness, the Dukan Diet (which sounds awful), HCG Diet (insane), and lots of random health consultants. With all the support in Hong Kong, there’s honestly no excuse to be fat, no matter how little you can move your shoulder.
So my plan will be twofold. First, I’ll do something and review it for everyone, meaning I'll ask everyone for sympathetic tweets. Second, I’ll abjure swimmers, gymnasts, and buses of screaming guys from my daily existence and focus on something a little bit more wholesome, like staring at girls. That’s the funny thing about dudes in really good shape—they spend an inordinate amount of time staring at their own bodies and the bodies of other men. I prefer women.
Anyway, if the summer winds down and you’re still fat, stop being fat. Don’t eat and drink as much. Do something active everyday. That’s a start and a start is all you need. Now all I need to do is convince myself of this very thing and I’ll live a skinny, healthy, wholesome life.