Free Fat by James Keene Page A

exterior.   He was still holding onto the remnants of the old Xander, but he played football now, so who cares?  A fat kid with a marine animal shirt is a flaming nerd, but an athlete with a penguin on his shirt is cool because he’s a brainiac meathead – a guy that could wear something other than popped Lacoste polos and loose Buffalos, and by seemingly not caring what other kids think, he was actually making them think sea mammalian tees were approaching kitschy cool.  His confidence could make him a trendsetter in his small teenaged world.
         “Well if you ever decide to become sexually active, you know you can always come here to talk about it.  Anything you say will be confidential.  By law, your mom will not hear about anything from me.” 
         I never thought I would ever need to give Xander a sex talk.  Morbid obesity is the ultimate birth control.  Sure, a few obese girls and boys sometimes get opportunity to act really slutty to even out the playing field, but morbidly obese people have such a limited selection of potential suitors, that natural selection usually takes care of their teenage pregnancy rates.  But, this new Xander is now high risk.  Improving his chances to get his pig-into-a-blanket was obviously part of his drive to lose weight, so in that end, Xander, mission accomplished.
         “That’s good to know, Dr. Grant.  What if I said all I fantasize about is that while I’m boning some chick, I slowly put a pillow over her face so she’s trashing for breath when I climax?”
         Holy shit.  “Well, uh, in that instance…hmmm…”
         “C’mon Dr. G, I’m joking.  Oh man, you should have seen the look on your face.”
         This kid is my kind of kid, now.  I looked down at his vitals in the chart: good heart rate, good blood pressure, weight trending down towards a normal BMI.  Nice.  His physical exam was largely normal, save for a few fading stretch marks around his abdominal flanks.  He had markedly better strength and flexibility than I remembered from his physical last year.  He could do a duck walk across the exam room without breaking a sweat.  He looked well-built for football.  I guess that makes sense: how could he not have had some baseline muscle mass after having had enough fat draped on him as to basically be in a constant state of weightlifting?
         “Xander, I have to tell you, this new you is really, really great.  You’ve lost weight, gained muscle mass, you seem happy and look healthier – just fantastic, little buddy.”
          Xander just smiled.  “Thanks, Dr. Grant.”
         “What has your diet been like recently?”
         “Well, like I told you before, I cut out all drinks except for water or diet soda…”
         “Awesome.”
         “…but I guess my diet is still pretty typical teenager – still some junk.  Like the whole team goes to grab pizza and burgers after almost every practice and game, and you know how it goes, eating a lot is a male pride thing.”
         “Well, just be careful with that, because your metabolism is the best it’s ever going to be right now, so you can eat total garbage at this age and your body will just burn it.   But, if you keep with the bad eating habits, as your metabolism slows down as you get older, your body is not going to be able to burn it all and you will put on weight.  You are not going to be doing two-a-days when you’re fifty.”
         “God, I hope I don’t still have to do those then.”
         “I am not saying you can’t eat some junk, but do it in moderation, and try eating some more fruits and veggies.”
         “Alright, doc, I will try my best.  Junk tastes so good, though.”
         “Yeah, I know.  But the key words here are “in moderation”.  A life without some junk would not be too enjoyable.  Sometimes, nothing is better than a good bacon cheeseburger.”
         “Or an