What Disaster Movies Have Taught Me About Weight Loss

I am ill prepared for any sort of apocalypse.

I have come to this conclusion from watching multiple disaster movies over the years.

In these movies there is some sort of horrible event.  These inciting incidents of the apocalypse vary.  You’ve got your tidal waves, your earthquakes, your ominous giant meteors, your sudden ice age. Then there are the invasion plot lines.  You know, the descent of the aliens, the advancing of the zombies, the uprising of the super computer.  Whatever horrible event they choose, it paralyzes or destroys a large community; and people panic, run, and fight for survival.

In these movies, I see people escaping to safety with feats of athleticism I have not yet mastered.  They are always scaling walls to leave the zombie hoard behind.  Squeezing into tight spaces to wait out the most recent wave of the earthquake. Pulling themselves up onto high walls and out of the way of the tidal wave, or sprinting into a building to dodge the fireball.

I see these activities and realize, “If this ever really goes down I will be so dead.”  I can’t run, leap, scale, dodge.

I can hustle.  Is it enough to just hustle?  Like when you are crossing a street and a car is coming so you make that subtle shift from a walk to an only slightly faster run.  Is that enough, just to do that slightly faster fake jog? Will that be enough to dodge the aliens?  Beat the ice age? Reach the super computer in time?  I don’t think so.

Alright, so if I am not able to get myself out of harm’s way, maybe there is a chance I could be rescued.

About a year ago I went to see the second Captain America movie, which includes an epic scene where a building crumbles to the ground with a woman inside it. Captain America soon comes to her aid and heroically pulls back the debris.  Then he lifts the fragile woman out of the rubble and carries her to safety.  I watch this scene and all I can think about is, if this were me, would he be able to lift me?

You don’t want to be the damsel in distress that requires them to call the Hulk for back up.  You don’t want to be the victim that requires the Iron Man to invent some sort of system of pulleys to raise you to safety.

I have to lose weight just to save my pride when the superheroes show up.

Ok, let’s say I manage to outrun and/or be rescued from the apocalypse.   Then there is life in the aftermath.  Times will be hard.  Who knows what resources we will have, and I don’t fare well without food.

I love food.  I love to think about food.  Cook food. Eat food. I’d miss food if it were gone. On top of missing it, my blood sugar will be low so I will be cranky.

Now let say things turn dark and resources are gone and people start having cannibalistic thoughts.  Well, let’s face it, I look delicious.  I mean, I will already be hard to deal with. If the group of survivors is trying to make a decision about who will be the forbidden meal, it isn’t going to take them long to pick the hangry girl with a little meat on her bones.

So you see, I have to continue with my health goals. I have to lose the weight so I can be the hero, or the damsel, or at least the one that makes it until the resources arrive. 

If I don’t lose the weight I will end up as some sort of B character in the cannons of time.  Ya know, the one who talks about sentimental things like my front porch or seeing spring flowers one last time, just before they kill me off.  I will be the character who makes you feel a little bad about the disaster but not bad enough to stop watching the movie.  I’ll be that guy.  I don’t want to be that guy.

I could try to say that, although I am being rather silly here, there is truth somewhere at the heart of this rant.  That this particular “weight loss fear” stems from a fear that I am not equipped for the life I want in this body.  That maybe what I am really getting at is that if I don’t tackle my weight then I won’t be the right person in “my story.”  And, well, there are a lot of insecurities there.

But I think the real truth is I just don’t want Thor to show up to carry me to safety and have to ask someone for a lever and a fulcrum.