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of them are EIGHT-packs.
    Me, I have a one-pack. My stomach looks like dough after it has risen, before it has been baked. When I saw a recent TV ad for Reebok running shoes, in which a fat disembodied belly chases a man all over town, I had several thoughts in quick succession. The first thought was the ad's slogan, which was 'Belly's gonna get ya!'. Too true, I thought. The second was that this was an historic moment. For years, we've seen images of women's bodies chopped up into their constituent parts, and now this is happening to men. And the third thought was: That's my belly. That's my belly out there. It looks like dough.
    And the fourth thought was: Where can I buy those shoes?
    Now I'm looking at the stomach magazines and wondering if I should buy a stomach magazine and thinking that if I bought a stomach magazine I would be fine, fine. And I'm thinking about my own belly, which fills me with a familiar nameless dread, and I want to eat, but I don't want to eat, and I can feel my belly pressing outwards against my jacket, straining to get out, straining to get out and chase me through the streets.
    And I wonder: how did I get here?

Fat History
    I didn't get fat until I was eight years old and my family moved to Canada, and I suddenly started thinking and acting like a fat person. When I tell people this, they say it must have been something to do with the burgers and the fries and the popcorn and the hot dogs. And I say that, yes, the food might
    have played a role. But what made me fat came from inside my head. When I went to Canada, I was one person; when I came back, I was another. I was fat.
    I stayed fat until I was ten. That doesn't sound like a long time, but it was. At ten, I discovered sport, and got slimmer. I played soccer and rugby and cricket. I swam. I got in the school teams. But I still wasn't quite right. I still felt fat on the inside. My weight fluctuated. I had to watch myself around food. Sometimes I binged.
    By the age of 17, nobody would have looked at me and seen a fat guy. I was more or less slim. The only person who knew my secret was me. When I went to university, I was still more or less slim. My weight still fluctuated. Sometimes I thought I was getting fat. But this was nothing compared to what would happen later. For instance, at the age of 20 I once got up into the high 190s. Big deal. This was when I was living in a house with some dope-smoking bums. I was one of the bums. Our idea of a good meal was fried `eggy bread' large doorstep slices of white bread dipped in egg, fried in butter, and covered in brown sugar. We spent our time lounging in odd positions, giggling, listening to obscure rock albums, making rounds of eggy bread through the night. But I wasn't really fat. I looked like a slim person who had become a slob.
    After this I lost weight again. I became sexually promiscuous. (This would always happen when I lost weight.) I was slim until I was 26. That's the year I left university. By the time I met Anna, though, when I was 27, I was 208 lbs fat enough to make a difference. She was a princess on the slide; I was her plump provider. I grew into the role. During my time
    with Anna, I peaked at 220 lbs. At 31, I slimmed down. I was perfectly slim 190 lbs at 31 and 32. But it didn't make much difference; when Anna looked at me, she still saw the plump provider. Later, when I met Sadie, I was back up to 208 lbs. Weird. Another princess on the slide; another chance to play my familiar role. Except this time things got out of hand.
    It was a gradual ascent, but this time it felt inexorable. There were some plateaux and some dips. There were diets. I sometimes lost a pound or two. I joined a gym. That didn't work. I started to use the gym. That didn't work either. I'm making this stupid joke, I think, in an effort to sound jolly. But there's nothing jolly about being fat. As I crept towards 40, I started to worry. At one point I did Montignac for a while. And, like I said, one day