It was a breezy Friday evening in the fall in San Diego. I was a biochemistry Ph.D. student out to dinner with friends after a full week of research, classes and teaching. I’d had a strong interest in biology since grade school, particularly in how the body malfunctions and the inventive ways we treat it. The idea that tiny molecules affected our health, thoughts and quality of life was fascinating to me.
Keeping my fat in check had never been easy, and I watched my weight closely. On this day, like every other, I had counted my calories since the morning. I ate a painstakingly balanced combination of grains, proteins and vegetables. I abstained from anything fun — no sugar, carb-heavy snacks or alcohol. I had run for 40 minutes, and lifted weights. As I sat down to dinner with my friends, I held steadfast — I ordered a small salad and water. My friend, Lindsey, ordered a beer and burrito and devoured it all.
That seemingly trivial event changed everything for me. Lindsey was 4 foot 11 inches and probably about 95 pounds. She never went to the gym. She drank sugary lattes and indiscriminately ate fast food. She worked in the lab all day like me, and hunched over a computer in the evening. Yet somehow this petite woman was able to pack in a large steak burrito, with beans, rice, sour cream, guacamole, cheddar cheese all wrapped in a flour tortilla, and then down a beer as if all this were nothing unusual. She had no guilt afterward, no appearance of worry, she made no comments about feeling sick after eating it or how she would need to run on the treadmill the next morning. Nothing.
I felt as though nature was cackling in my face. This was one of the moments in my life that made me realize that we are not all created equal, at least not when it comes to fat. Just as some people are taller, or produce more sweat, or grow more hair, there are some who simply produce more fat than others. And one of those people happened to be me.
