Sea of Fat

Today, I took The Wife, The Kid, and two of The Kid's friends on an outing. We went out to lunch (onion soup and salad), walked around the mall for an hour, headed over to the movies, and then went out for pizza. I'm sure I blew my diet, but I tried really hard to be reasonable with what I ate. Instead of eating a mountain of pizza, I only had two slices and one trip through the salad bar.

Of course my downfall was the movies. I just couldn't say no to a box of Reese's Pieces. On the plus side, I gave half the box away to the kids.

So maybe it wasn't so bad.

But I was struck by something today. I felt like I was swimming through a sea of fat people. Everywhere I looked, I saw almost no one of what would be considered a healthy weight. In the restaurants, at the mall, in the movie theater, nearly everyone was heavier than they should have been. There were people ranging from what I would call "chubby" to people even more obese than I. I remember one woman sitting on a bench near the bottom of one of the escalators who was so large, she reminded me of Jabba the Hut. I felt sorry for her, because she looked tired and sad. Age didn't seem to matter, either. Children, adolescents, adults -- they were all fat.

I've been surfing around weight loss web sites the past few days, and the story of this woman absolutely amazes me. She used to weigh 300 lbs, lost 180 lbs and is now a fitness trainer. She isn't just thin, she is buff.

I didn't see any people who looked like her eating out, at the theater or in the mall. All I saw was a sea of fat.