When I was in high school, my cousins teased me that I was fat.   They even called me and my brother "The Two Little Pigs".  Consequently, I spent my days hopping from one diet to another (the one that worked best on me was the no-rice diet), joining all sorts of sports despite rigorous CAT training (basketball, badminton, and pingpong), and even working out furiously on the stationary bicycle for up to an hour each day.  My parents and friends told me that my figure was fine and in fact a little skinny, but I didn't believe them.  I was almost suffering from a mild form of anorexia nervosa at the time.  I'd look at the mirror and see this pudgy girl.

   Yet, I weighed just 98 pounds, with a waistline of 24 inches.  Ah, the good old days, only I didn't realize it at the time. 

   I was like that all the way through college.  And then, just before I entered Med school, romance struck.

   I'd always credited my weight gain to all the coffee and junkfood that I obsessively consumed during my endless nights of studying, but now I realized that being involved with someone at the time also contributed.  Current evidence supports that relationships can have this effect.  A Cornell University study of 1,980 married people found that women are more prone to gaining weight during the first year of marriage than men.

   My ex used to be fit too, but somehow, once we got together, our diets fell apart.  It didn't help that he was huge with a matching appetite; when he was in his early teens, he got a hairsbreadth away from acquiring Diabetes Mellitus type 2 because of his weight and unhealthy eating habits.  His doctor put him on a healthy kind of crash diet and ordered him to work out.  A lot. That way, he was able to control his weight for several years.   However, dining out, fastfood, and spare hours reserved for study changed all that, for us both. 

   There was another factor.  In many long-term relationships, the motivation to stay thin fades, explains Edward Abramson, a professor of psychology at California State University-Chico and the author of "Marriage Made Me Fat." Part of the attitude shift is a waning interest in conforming to a strict beauty ideal that the male species is supposedly drawn to -- a woman in a relationship has already found a partner to love her. (excerpts from IS LOVE MAKING YOU FAT?)

   We've always said that love is blind--that if you really love someone, factors such as shape and size shouldn't matter.  But this doesn't give us the license to let ourselves go just because we think that our partners shouldn't care.  (I still hear from him every now and then, and he supposedly lost all that excess weight again.  Figures.)

   Fortunately for me, Tomato happens to be a work-out buff.  He said that a few years before we met again (long story), he gained so much weight that I wouldn't have recognized him.  He also had a girlfriend then.  Fortunately, he recognized the danger in time (maybe the ribbing he got from his friends had something to do with it too), and enrolled himself in a good gym.  Within a few months, he was trim, fit, and proudly wearing form-fitting shirts everywhere.  

When we got together, he dragged me along with him to the gym, to my mother's delight.  I was embarrassed to go alone before, but his cheerful and encouraging presence made all the difference.  So now, I'm slowly but steadily trying to lose the accumulated cellulite of eight years, not because Tomato wouldn't love me anymore if I didn't get thinner, but because I enjoy it and it's good for me.  That, I think, is the best reason to do it.

Now if I can only stop snacking on those darned ubiquitous scrumptious potato chips...

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This sounds as sweet as love (but not quite as fattening (I hope):

Minted Honeydew Soup - Recipe
Inspired by Summer, by Joanne Weir (Time-Life Books, 1997).

This would make a heavenly first course for a summer supper under the stars--or a refreshingly light dessert. A luscious tribute to the sweet melons ripening now, the recipe calls for only four ingredients: melon, mint, lime juice, and a dollop of honey. You don‘t have to cook it at all--just whiz it in a blender or food processor. The results are pure poetry.

Simple Solution: printer friendly version If you don’t have any honeydew handy, you can use any sweet melon you fancy for this simple recipe. Read it here: 2 pounds ripe melon, peeled, seeded, and cut into chunks (about 1/2 large melon) 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves 3 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lime juice (more if needed) 1 tablespoon honey Salt to taste Optional garnishes: fresh mint sprigs, thin lime slices 1. Process the ingredients in batches in a blender or food processor until smooth. 2. Cover and chill at least 1 hour. 3. Taste, adding additional lime juice, if necessary, and salt. Serve in individual chilled bowls, garnished with lime slices and mint sprigs, if desired. Serves 6.