You know what I hate? Fat people. Can't stand the chubby bastards. They take up too much space for one thing. And they eat too much - they're a drain on our resources. Drop one of the tubby bitches into a nature reserve chock full of unique flora and fauna; Within a week it will be ruined - Endangered animals eaten, rare plants trampled by saturnine legs as they lumber towards their next unsuspecting meal. Entire areas flattened and sunken when the behemoth immediately tires of moving and drops buttocks that go past gargantuan to the indescribably Lovecraftian down on to the now forever blighted ground.

The problematic aspect of my hatred for the morbidly obese is that I myself am dangerously overweight. I don't know exactly what my ideal weight is, but I'm pretty sure it's not that much over 80kg, and not the 105 I clocked in at the last time I planted my monstrous girth on a set of industrial strength scales.

Of course, there's one aspect of my corpulence that sets me apart from my flabby brethren. I don't complain about it.

I'm surrounded by fat bastards complaining incessantly about being overweight. Well, alright, perhaps "incessantly" is a bit of an exaggeration - most of the time they just lie there struggling to breathe. But that's not my point. My point is that these fleshy mountains, and all of the people I've seen on tv recently wheezing that obesity is a disease, were complaining about their weight from their sofas, pizzas and chocolate bars clutched desperately in their sausage-like fingers.

I've had a lot of people tell me that they must lose weight, that they don't like themselves as fat as they are. But as they're saying this, they're wolfing down enough grease to render a small African nation transparent. And there's never even the whispered hint of exercise. One old acquaintance used to talk every week about going to Jenny Craig's, or purchasing any one of a dozen infomercial advertised weight loss products. All this while they were eating between 4-5 meals a day.

Four or five months ago, I moved in to a flat 20 minutes walk from town. Since then, I've done just that - walked to town. And I've taken to wandering up the mount next to my house every day. Also, I exist on a diet of 2-minute noodles. I haven't weighed myself in quite a while, and I'm still a disgustingly fat bastard, but I've just had to make a second extra hole in my belt. Recently I've started going out in public wearing a shirt I brought four years ago that has always been too small. It fits me now.

As I say, I'm nowhere near thin, but I am thinner than I've been since I was 19, all weight lost since I started eating less and doing only a little bit of exercise. A few years ago when my brother made a conscious effort to get thinner, he lost around 25kg in only a few months. I mean, gods know I'm not doing this properly. I eat only noodles ie nothing but carbohydrates. I drink only milk ie liquid cow fat. Mondays thru' Wednesdays are discount hamburger days at McDonalds, so I'll usually have at least one meal there each of those days to save money. And while I don't eat snacks any more, I'd be bloody lucky to go a couple of weeks without my resolve snapping, and spending perfectly good rent money on some kind of chocolate related item. I quite literally can't remember the last time I had vegetables. With the shite I'm ingesting, not only should I be not be losing weight, I shouldn't still be alive. It's not what I'm eating, it's that I'm eating a lot less of it, and doing a bit of exercise.

So every one who complains about being fat, anyone who doesn't like themselves at their present weight, has to do two things;

1) Eat less - Three small meals a day, no snack foods. Yeah you'll get hungry - it's because your bloated stomachs are so large. Live with the hunger for a little while and they'll get smaller.

2) Do a tiny amount of exercise. Not running, not anything that takes too much effort. Walk for twenty minutes a day. Leave your house, walk for 10 minutes, then turn around and walk back. It's not hard.

Do this for a month, and don't cheat. If you haven't lost at least some weight by the end of it, THEN you can go back to complaining. Or better yet, go on some sort of medication, because you've got yourself some kind of diagnosable problem.

So that's it - From now on, if I hear anyone complaining about their weight and not doing anything about it, I'm harpooning you fuckers for your own good. Now go do some sit ups.

Disclaimer 1 - There's actually nothing wrong with being fat. If you are a person of size and are happy that way, all power to you. It's only the lazy bastards who want to magically lose weight that piss me off.

Disclaimer 2 - Just while we're talking about this - If you're a thin, attractive person who goes around saying that you have to lose weight and asking "Do I look fat in this?" I will personally find you and eat you. Get some pies down you for Christ's sake.

--Apathy Jack