The Physics of Fat

Alright, class, please consider the following equation, and solve for n:

patience ≤ n ÷ hormones – time of day

Anyone? Anyone? Before we get to the answer, let’s think about the elements we do know.

The first variable we must account for is PATIENCE.

I had my first (and only. I think…) baby at 36 years old, and while I’m glad in many ways that it turned out that way, it is no joke that poppin’ ‘em out young has its advantages, and not doing so, its drawbacks. The first thing people say when the subject comes up is invariably some riff on “but you have more patience as an older parent,” to which I reply “BULLFUCKINGSHIT.”

Let us not kid ourselves; getting older is a contract with the devil for which there is no opt-out clause. While part of me is diggin’ part of it, most of the process sorely tries my tolerance for folly. Where I once had the patience of, if not exactly Job, at least one of your minor saints (here’s a list for you to choose from; my favorite: St. Maurice, Patron Saint of Cramps), as the years rack up ever more swiftly, I find myself inching perilously close to Granny Clampettville. If I had a vegetable garden, I’d be out there right now with a shotgun chasing chickens out of it, with my hair in a bun. I do not suffer fools gladly, especially when the rhuematis’ is worrying me.

The second variable is HORMONES, a very dodgy business in general, but particularly as it pertains to the question at hand. I have been one very fortunate individual in this regard, at least up until the last few years; my husband still can’t tell when , um…how shall I put this…the Red Sox are in town? We need a clean-up in aisle one? Miss Scarlett's come home to Tara? It’s officially hummer week?

Yes, hard as it may be to believe, I, Robyn, am a bit squeamish myself about such matters. Suffice to say that other than bleeding like a Tarantino movie, I don’t display many outward symptoms of, uh… uterine jihad. So hormonal concerns never played much of a role in my daily affairs, that is, until I became someone’s Mommy, when Nature decided to play a funny joke and twiddle all the little dials on my internal mixing board. Now, the mix is all muddy and the bass is WAAAY too loud. Some days, I am less able to conceal my utter exasperation than on others, and suffice to say that much of this has to do with where Aunt Flo is in relation to my house.

Lastly, we must account for TIME OF DAY. Since my ass is still unemployed, it’s less a matter of being tired from a long day in the mines than just being strung out from going to the library and the bank in the same day. While fat. Without a nap. It’s no mystery that mornings can be a stressful period for families with school-age children, but I propose that contrary to logic, the internal pressure actually increases exponentially until bedtime, due to various tenets of quantum mechanics I will not bore you with at this time. It is not unusual for me to have crossed the event horizon irrevocably by 9 pm, in which case I am unable to watch The Daily Show/Colbert Report with both eyes open. So you see my urge to find the answer to this equation.

Alright, then; anyone want to venture a guess what our missing variable might be? No?

Energy, class. The answer to my problem is energy. Let’s look at it again, with n solved:

patience ≤ energy ÷ hormones – time of day

My patience is less than or equal to (but never, ever >) my energy level, which is divided by my hormone level minus the time of day the measurement takes place. Does this make sense?
Mathematics may be as good a place as any to look for an explanation of my zombie tendencies. Here’s a golden energy oldie you all know and love:

E=mc²

Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Do you know what the speed of light is??? Like, fast, yo! And times itself, even! If Einstein is correct, I should have enough energy stored in my own personal mass to equal a handful of hydrogen bombs. Why the hell can’t I have a couple of beers without needing a nap, then? Whatever, Albert…

I have relied many times on medical science to bridge the gap between the force required to execute all the necessary tasks in any given day and my natural state of body at rest, and found that while this may be an effective short-term solution, it doesn’t do much to allay the problem in the long term. When the bottle of Twinlab Ripped Fuel is finally gone, when the Phentermine prescription runs out, when the CVS energy-shot freebies ultimately run dry, the clock is ticking on my energy stockpile.

Yeah, yeah, yeah; I fully get that eating properly and staying in shape trigger an increase in energy. But what does one do if one cannot muster the necessary inertia to put the chain reaction in motion in the first place?

Who out there finds themselves lacking the element of energy more than they used to? How does this manifest itself for you? What’s your solution?

Class?