Belly-Off 2011

I am told that there is a happy point in every pregnancy where the expectant mother progresses from looking a little bit fat and perhaps as though she's just eaten a big meal to looking truly like the carrier of a fetus.  Which comes with a number benefits, including no longer having to be embarrassed that people think you’re fat, and more importantly that people start to treat you indulgently, doing things like offering you a seat on the subway and so on.  Sara has finally started to show properly, and has been trying to score seats on the subway by pushing out her stomach as much as possible in the effort to look even more pregnant.  To date, she has gotten some sympathetic looks from other (standing) passengers, but no one has offered up a seat.

I have to say, it doesn't take too much effort for a non-knocked up lady to look 5 or 6 months if she puts in just a little effort.  When I was a bright young undergrad in Montreal, one of the favourite hobbies of my roommates and mine was to make our way to Chinatown, spend many hours at a buffet, and walk the streets after, forcefully sticking our swollen food-baby bellies, smoking.  The reason we did this was two-fold.  First, in the spirit of healthy competition, we wanted to see who could look the most pregnant on a scale of one to nine months.  Second, we wanted to see what sort of reaction we'd get out of people.  There were some glares, but nothing more than that except one aged french lady who stopped us and said we should be ashamed of ourselves.  Not because of the smoking (no mention of that), but because we were young and unwed and we shouldn't flaunt our sin in such an obvious manner.  I have to admit the sight of our stomachs poking out from the bottoms of our baby-Ts was may have been a little graphic. 

So when Sara mentioned that she couldn't get a seat on the subway to save her life, I was of course compelled to remind her of my talent for looking at least as pregnant as her, or even more, with a little gluttony. A challenge was born.   

My drinking assignment for the weekend was to put my money where my mouth was and drink as much beer and eat as much food as possible, just to see, at the end of the night, how I measured up.

Feast your eyes on the progression of my svelte self into swollen beast of a lady.  I promise you these pictures are really of my stomach and not random photos found online.  Sara, as the photographer, can attest to that.  I forewarn that while gorging oneself on beer and food may be a good way to be a contender in a belly-off challenge, it is certainly not a good way to attract boys.  If there are any cute boys reading this, please, as a favour to me, look no further.  Well, maybe at the first picture, but then, definitely, I implore you to shut off your computers and walk away.

This is just me on Saturday before the challenge began.  Something about this angle... I'm not looking quite so fit as usual.

Did you just drink three cans of Mill Street Lemon Tea beer and eat three slices of pizza? Yes, yes I did.

At this point, my ultrasound technician, should I have one, would be able to clearly discern the swirling foam of five tall boys and a selection of half-digested green olives and mushrooms from half of a pizza.

I would hope that standing passengers would look at me sympathetically if no one offered me a seat on the subway.  I am no longer comfortable admitting how much beer and pizza were ingested to get to this size.

Please bear in mind that I am not quite so disgusting as to have eaten and drunk enough to look this way unassisted.  I am also flexing my abdominal muscles outward as hard as I can.  Try it.  You can look pretty big, too.

I threw up on arrival at home from a combination of excessive fullness and sheer relief.  I'm told that marathon runners often throw up after a race as well.

And the winner is... me.  I think it's safe to say that I am the champion of Belly-Off 2011.  Though Sara is the real, albeit not impartial, judge.  I'm very, very happy to report that by Monday morning I had shriveled back to my normal size.  Poor Sara will just get bigger and bigger for the next three or four months.  Hooray!  I'm the winner on two counts.