Growing a Meat Beard - Or The Thing I Have In Common With Vince Vaughn

I am obsessed with double chins.

I catch myself looking at people’s neck area everywhere I go.

Every time I see someone with a double chin, I feel a brief thrill of solidarity – my people!!

I generally tend to avoid mirrors but find myself checking my reflection numerous times a day, scoping out my new meat beard.

I have always been a bit jowly; kind of like Minnie Driver, although nowhere near as attractive.  There has always been a tiny…bubble?..I don’t know the term. 

Not a turkey wattle – although I feel like that is in the queue-- more like an uninflated vocal sack? 

Anyway, there was always a bit of softness there. ‘But the actual second chin is a new phenomenon.

I have gained 40 pounds in the last twelve months.

Not there yet, but it feels like it!

The last 10 pounds I have packed on seemed to have come with a free fanny-pack for my throat and it is on my mind constantly.

The Monday after the Oscars, I went scrolling through all of the photos from the event and afterparties, looking for celeb double chins.  The double chins I found were not met with the same sense of solidarity as, say, when I find one on your Aunt Janet at Target.  How could they be when there were 23,000 worth of Winston diamonds reflecting rainbows of light across the sagging chin of a millionaire?  Definitely not ‘my people’!

I have Googled ‘why do I have a double chin’, ‘how to get rid of a double chin’, and a variety of diets – Keto! Whole30! Mediterranean! – designed to reduce body fat, and thus send my throatee back to the netherworld from whence it emerged.

(Side note: I also remembered one of my mother’s more flamboyant friends, standing in our living room, advising someone – surely not my 8-year-old self, definitely not my 90-lb mother, and hopefully not my teenaged sister – that giving blow jobs was the best way to prevent or get rid of a double chin.  Lest anyone was in doubt of her meaning, she very graphically mimed the, er, activity. Not sure how I feel about that right now in regards to my double chin, but the thought is out there - yikes.)

So, this is my reality right now.  It’s not my favorite thing, and I have definitely been working on it the last few days, but it is definitely making my life uncomfortable.  Every picture I take at every event, I try to position my head just so, and I furiously delete my photos if I am not happy with the fat scarf showing up. 

I am working on it, though.

I know that diet and exercise are the key to losing weight, and hopefully losing my face extension, so I emptied my fridge and cupboards of anything that could contribute to me gaining or maintaining this weight.

I ‘exercised’ last night – more on that tomorrow – and I have been doing weird exercises to tighten the flab there.

About the BJ’s?

I’ll keep you posted.

Haven't exactly started shopping here, but I haven't ruled it out!