[Doc Faustus]

When I was 17, I decided to do something about my weight. First I tried a 900 calorie diet as recommended by my doctor. I almost vomited on my English teacher and was so weak my vision got blurry. On the day of two tests, I was functionally illiterate. I had to quit that diet. Then, I walked twenty four miles a day to lose weight. Went for 293 to 226 by my eighteenth birthday. But one day my legs gave way since I had been walking for a month and a half on a stress fracture. Told myself not to be a pussy and that the pain was natural. I fell. I landed on my right wrist so badly there were bits of street inside. Ended up in a wheelchair for four months and my body was never the same after that. My left leg still hurts if I tax it too much and a lot of exercises have become difficult because one of the bones in my hand never healed. Pushups for one thing are excruciating. I went up to 270 again over the course of a few years. Recently, I made it back down to 228. Not everybody who's overweight is that way out of sheer indolence, just as not everyone who's poor is that way because they're stupid or a junky. Fruits and vegetables are getting pricey while a cheesburger is a dollar. Some people will BA's and higher degrees are living in tents. Get some perspective, people.