o brother what hath thou become?

I've lost weight. Six pounds. Ring the damn bells.

I'm feeling good about things right about [now]. I seem to be doing a good enough job of keeping my intake (food) balanced with my outtake (exercise) and I've managed to remain loosely on Program without getting whacked about it. I'm sure my time will come. Honestly, what has kept me from feeling the need to have such ultimate control over everyfuckingthing that goes into my mouth is the realization that I'm going to eat/exercise like this for the rest of my life. So I go slow. I allow myself to taste what's in the aisles of the Whole Foods. I still enjoy 1/2 and 1/2 in my coffee. I savored a strawberry shortcake on Easter Sunday made with low-fat bisquick and vanilla yogurt. And strawberries like my mom used to make 'em, mashed with a little sugar and then chilled...

One of the other reasons why I am adamantly opposed to analyzing the shit out of my weight loss process is my brother. I read recently that male anorexia is on the rise. I don't think my brother is anorexic--he's 46, after all, and cases of men developing an eating disorder that late in life are slim to none--but he is OBSESSED with his weight and will tell anyone who will listen what he's doing that day for exercise, how he's smaller than ever, blah blah. Now, I wouldn't begrudge him anything if I didn't know him so well and if we didn't come from the same massively dysfunctional-when-it-comes-to-food-and-weight family. But I know his game. It's about oneupmanship, and judgment. And I won't play.

Last week he called me while taking his daily(?) walk. The wind was whipping so hard that I could barely hear him, and he was panting as he powerwalked his suburban Detroit neighborhood. I kept saying "I can't hear you!" to which he would reply "well, I'm walking." Then he would launch into a new diatribe about plans for our mother's 70th birthday party and I was lucky if I heard every other sentence due to the wind tunnel he was in. The fact was that he didn't CARE if I could hear him or not. He calls me when he's exercising because it's the only time he deems "free" enough to talk. My brother enjoys more than a modicum of celebrity in Michigan and therefore is "in demand". So I have to take him when I can get him, which is usually while he's huffing his way up a hill.

I am happy for my brother in that he has taken charge of his health. He was diagnosed with high blood pressure a couple of years ago and it scared the shit out of him. So now he's an exercise fiend. Of course, he has to do something to counterbalance the magnum of wine he consumes weekly. Add to that the fact that he has never been happy. Nothing is ever enough--unless it's the "best" of its kind. I come from a long line of consummate snobs. I have my own membership card, it's true. But his is another kind of snobbery all together. If you are overweight, drinking cheap Gallo wine, eating anything that resembles a carb and not hitting the gym at least three times a week...well, pity raineth down.

Undoubtedly I sound like a bitch here. I don't dislike my brother, but I have grown weary of his self-absorption and classist/fatist attitude. There are moments when I glimpse the brother I once knew--when he laughs and his beautiful hazel eyes light up--but most of the time I feel like one of his fans jostling for a moment of time with their journalistic saviour. And I don't appreciate that feeling. Fame has changed my brother, but it has not brought him any closer to contentment. And neither has the number on his scale.