Getting fat is fabulous. This is true if you like not fitting into your clothes and having to buy new ones, getting chided by your family non-stop, and feeling down about yourself and future prospects for survival as a living person.

When you get fat, you throw into jeopardy your chances of getting to Heaven. God doesn't condone fatness. I read it in the Bible once (Mark: Chapter 14, line 237). Nobody admires fat.

Sadly, it used to be this wasn't the case. Go to any upscale art museum and notice all the overweight women in 17th century paintings. Some are partially nude and others even more so. Back then fat was in. Men preferred the fat women, someone told me once. I found that more than a little intriguing. Whether you are a man or a woman, if you are honest with yourself, you would admit that paintings of chubby women are very voluptuous. They sure seem to be secure in who they are.

The 17th century was a better time to be alive.

17th century nude painting of a woman
"Seriously, what's the big deal? I look amazing."

There is one noteworthy upside to being fat: Because you will die younger, you find out whether God wants you faster. In this Internet-accelerated world where instant gratification reigns, you find out sooner if you will hang out for eternity in Heaven or burn in Hell. The answer to this question remains relevant.

When you are fat, death is your closest friend.

This week I battled my fat phobias while in Las Vegas. In the hotel in which I stayed, there is a restaurant called the Grand Lux Café. I had a piece of double-chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream that—I am sure—tasted better than bliss. Bliss is beautiful but it's not in the same league as that piece of cake. A dark-brown sugar chunk, it was so big the NFL could use it to measure how big their official footballs should be.

As I ate the treasure, I thought about how my life was deteriorating because it was making me fatter, while at the same time improving because I was enjoying eating it more than any piece of cake I have ever eaten. Ironies such as these strike me sometimes. The icing on the cake was chilled and thick. You almost had to use a knife to cut it. The icing—so sweet, so sweet—reminded me of those chocolate fudge cake ice cream bars the Popsicle Man used to sell on summer evenings on my neighborhood street when I was a kid. The inside of those bars had a frozen chocolate bar. This chocolate center was the center of my universe. I would go so far as to say it may have been the zenith of my childhood.

As is typical in Vegas, there was no stopping the madness. This cake was as wondrous as the creation of the Earth, but more elegant and simple. It wasn't just chocolate, it was high-end, five-star restaurant chocolate. Decadent, gaudy, and over-the-top, just like all of Vegas—there was no chance of exercising restraint. I have been trying to have restraint to lose weight these past nine months but it's all unraveling.

Willpower is impossible.

The size of the piece could have satiated four people. If there was an international contest of all restaurants, it would be determined that this was the largest piece of chocolate cake. Cakes made by restaurants in Bulgaria and Hungary would have finished second and third, respectively. Don't believe me? Google it.

Sliced in a perfectly groomed geometric shape, my cake chunk was also the most delicious. A piece of Italian cake finished second. The Italians can really cook.

Drooling all over the cake's top was a mountain of vanilla ice cream. Like all vanilla ice creams, it was serviceable but forgettable, a bit player in a grand performance. Like light bulbs, vanilla ice creams are all the same except for different wattages. Vanilla ice cream is mainstream society, the epitome of pedestrian. If they had a name, they would be Joe Average. Don't give me that argument that vanilla bean is better than regular vanilla and tasty. No one cares.

Vanilla is so vanilla.

But the cake.

What is a man to do in such a situation? Deny himself what his instincts unequivocally tell him he wants? Think about how he needs to lose weight or will die young and Heaven or Hell awaits? Ponder his obesity prospects? Be strong? Give up? Get out of Vegas where vibes are too conducive to misbehavior?

He can ask himself any question he wants, but the answer will always be to eat the cake.

Man is weak. It is pleasure he seeks.

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