There was once a time in my early 20s when I could easily slip into a pair of slim 30-waisted pants. By my mid-20s, I had graduated to a 32 waist. Early last year, I began to expand a bit – not too much – and I was forced to ditch the 32 for a 33 – with a belt, however. All well and good, considering that for most of my adult life, I was actually too skinny. A little meat on the bone wasn’t going to hurt, and I didn’t want to spend the remainder of my 20s with the physique of a gangly high school student. I was fine with a 33. No, I welcomed it.
Oh, but then I celebrated the biggest life milestone besides having children: Holy Matrimony. Slowly, surely, almost deceptively, after our honeymoon in Italy last May – during which many a pizza and plate of pasta were devoured – pouches of body fat began to form and hang on my body like soft lumps of Play-Doh. I say deceptively, because, just on a daily basis, I really couldn’t tell how much I was changing. It’s hard to gauge weight gain when it creeps up on you, when you’re not hopping on a scale every morning, when you’re not paying attention to how many cheeseburgers you’re eating every week. I was still running, still trying to go to the gym, still going to the beach, still swimming, playing golf, surfing every once in a while. I was still living an active lifestyle. Mentally, I was still a size 33. In terms of my diet, I thought I had far more leeway than I really did.
Reality soon caught up. Reality always catches up. You can’t outrun it forever. Soon, the pants that were once too big were now fitting just right. Soon, the pants that required a belt to keep from sliding down my butt no longer required a belt. If they did, the belt only needed to be notched in the first or second hole. There was no slack on the belt. The belt was virtually useless.
Nevertheless, I was still denying reality and the changes I had undergone since marriage. I was still in full denial as I walked into a J-Crew store a few weeks back, brimming with all the confidence in the world. When do I ever shop? The answer is: never. I rarely buy clothes, perhaps once a year, so I was excited to wander through the men’s section, try on some shirts, try on some shorts, and come away with what I really wanted: a new, nice, clean, traditional pair of khaki pants. A conservative but timeless piece of clothing that never goes out of style.
Naive as I was, I plucked out a size 34 from the rack and took it to the fitting room. The thing about fitting rooms is that they are lit by the stark, bright, burning light of truth. This light also happens to be fluorescent. And, as this light washes over you, you also happen to be standing before an impeccably clean, full-sized mirror that accentuates certain angles and unflattering details a smaller mirror might miss. You may still be in your underwear, but you feel wholly naked. The mask of unreality slips. You look down at your stomach, and it’s hanging over the waistline like a muffin top. The button is literally hanging on by a thread and could rip off at any second. Hippies say they have experienced ego death, a temporary but shocking loss of self-identity, after taking hallucinogenic peyote with a native Amazonian tribe. I experienced it when I realized I needed a 36, and that the days of 30-32 were long, long gone.
Later that evening, I assessed the damage quantitatively. Like the fitting room mirror, the scale does not lie. The scale is scientific. The scale is cold and calculating. The scale spit out a number, but I didn’t believe it at first. This has to be off. The scale spit out a second number. No way! A third time … I was crushed. I thought I was unique, the exception to the rule. I thought it wouldn’t happen to me. But it did. I got married, and then I got kind of fat.
Well, I have since undergone some dieting changes. I try to view my beloved cheeseburger as a bi-weekly treat, less as a staple. When I take an alcoholic beverage, I prefer it to be light. Although I love IPAs, they are rather dense, and I’m not aiming for density: I’m striving for slightly more lightness, nimbleness in the foods I eat. My body itself isn’t as nimble as it used to be, and though I can still hit a fast sprint, I am now worried that one of my knees will emit a hollow pop! if I push too hard. Such is the nature of getting older, and such is the nature of marriage. But maybe you discover, as I have, that life is better when you think of it as a beautiful, slow walk, rather than a frantic dash.
So, yes, marriage weight gain is real, and it is also largely unavoidable. Don’t let the social media health influencers and gym bros try to convince you otherwise: unless you are a fanatic workout couple, or your primary hobby is running marathons with your spouse, when you tie the knot with your loved one, you are all but bound to put on at least 10 pounds of extra baggage. In my case, it was damn near 30.
The upside is that my wife doesn’t care at all; in fact, she actually likes that I have padded on some extra fluff around the edges. I think she prefers it that way. And I think we took from our southern Italian honeymoon some very southern Italian mindsets: embrace la dolce vita, and always remember: tutto passa. Live the sweet life – even if it’s unhealthy sometimes. Everything passes – even your 36 waistline.
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