Reader's Digest Articles

How I flunked liposuction

By Dr Art Hister, December 2006

My wife invariably refers to me as that "very successful loser" – and she's right: I've managed to shed 16 kilograms and keep them off for more than four years.

And, as my kids keep saying to anyone who asks, "If that geezer can do it, anyone can."

It all started with a holiday to Italy I took several years ago, where I indulged in my favourite pastimes of eating, drinking, eating, sleeping, eating, eating and eating. On that particular trip, my wife and I were accompanied by our good friends, Norm and Jeannie.

One day Norm and I were walking in Perugia and he decided to slide some coins into one of the scales that litter many small Italian towns. It revealed he hadn't gained a gram since the last time he weighed himself.

Norm then started in on me, trying to convince me to step on the scale. This was something I hadn't done in ages because I've had a nearly lifelong aversion to scales. I'd always been a bit chubby (OK, I was pretty fat), though I generally managed to hide it well.

I decided to humour Norm and got on the scale, which – to my huge surprise – promptly registered 76 kilograms. To my even greater chagrin, the scale stayed at that stratospheric reading no matter how much I shifted my feet. This induced a slowly rising but soon intense state of shock: being 1,67 metres tall, I suddenly had to confront the reality that I was schlepping a lot of excess poundage all over Italy.

"Maybe the scale is wrong," I told my wife, Phyllis, when we met up with her later in the day. "Maybe this is just one of those false positives I'm always telling you about when it comes to your blood tests."

"You must be kidding," was her instant rejoinder. "Just look in the mirror. You look exactly like a rye bread, maybe even a pumpernickel."

This really hit home: since my dad had been a bread maker, I knew that ryes and pumpernickels were by far the fattest of the loaves. "In fact, if you really want the truth," she continued, without waiting for my protest, "you look like a rye bread with breasts." (That woman can never let it go.)

So when we got back home to Vancouver, I immediately did what every man does when he has a problem he can't handle himself – I called a specialist to get an estimate: I went to see a friend, whom I'll call Joe – a plastic surgeon.
"You have to help me, Joe," I pleaded. "You have to get rid of some of this fat I'm carrying."
"And how exactly do you propose I do that?" asked Joe, nonchalantly skimming a magazine.
"Suck it away, of course."
"Well," said Joe, slowly putting down the magazine and peering at me sceptically. "We'll see. But before we do anything, I have to examine you. Go into that room and take off your clothes." I hate getting naked, but I wanted Joe to see my abdominal rolls tumbling over the waistband of my shorts. When he sees the spillover effect, he can't possibly refuse me, I thought.

After a cursory examination that lasted slightly longer than the time most men spend choosing a suit, that is 30 seconds, Joe said, "Arthur, we have a problem."
"We? What do you mean 'we have a problem', Joe?" I asked.
"I mean, you have a problem," Joe replied.
"I know that," I said. "That's why I'm here."
"That's not what I mean," Joe said. "You have a problem because I can't do a liposuction on you."
"What did you say?" I asked, refusing to believe that Joe had actually turned me down.
"I said, 'No liposuction for you'," Joe shot back. "Now, get dressed and go home. I have real patients to see."

"No liposuction for me?" I screamed back, drawing a loud guffaw from the waiting room. "Why can't I get liposuction?"
"Because, Arthur, you have no muscles," Joe said slowly, letting every word sink in.
"I'm flunking liposuction because I have no muscles?" I shrieked. "Why do I need muscles? And besides," I wailed, "I'm willing to pay you!"
"Look," he said. "If I performed liposuction on you, I would be taking your money for nothing because for liposuction to be meaningful you need muscles first. Even a tiny bit of muscle will do."

"But how do I do that?" I cried.
That's when the slim and very fit Joe proceeded to tell me about his fitness regime and his fitness club.
The rest is history. After a few sessions at that club (My personal trainer was oblivious to cries that I wanted to be just muscular enough to pass liposuction.), I got hooked on fitness. Hooked as in, "I can't live without it." And over the next year, through a combination of exercise and better eating habits, I managed to lose the aforementioned 16 kilograms and keep them off.

Indeed, on a recent reassessment from one of my harshest critics, I received the highest compliment she has ever paid me.
"No, you don't look like a rye bread anymore," my wife said, once again comparing me with baked goods. "You look more like a baguette."
I beamed.
"But one with breasts."
That woman can never let it go.