BMI Battle

(Cunning Ways to Lose Weight - Part 1)
The doctor gives the poet the thumbs-up while the latter bleeds on the scales

My doctor says I'm overweight,
I'm in the orange band,
To make it to the yellow zone
I'll need a helping hand.

So he's cancelled Sunday breakfast
And sworn me off scotch eggs,
He's drained my car of petrol
Chuckling 'Learn to use your legs!'

But I don't really buy it.
There's alternatives to diet.

I used to have a ponytail,
So first I had that chopped.
I filed off my fingernails -
They didn't do a lot.

I syphoned every orifice,
That's ears and nostrils too,
Then shaved all up and down the stairs
And blocked my pores with glue.

I bought myself a leotard
All webbed and made of feather
And leaf-thin flip-flops filled with air
(I'm hoping for good weather).

So the morning of the retest came,
I wandered down the road
And got savaged by a pit bull,
Who chewed off all my toes.

And thanks to that good fortune,
When I stepped on the machine,
The doctor said 'I've got good news!
You're one gramme in the green.'

Poem Study Notes:

This poem was written in 2014 when the poet, slim and trim as ever, was advised during a gym membership assessment (the ones where they try to scare you into spending lots of money) that he was overweight.

BMI means 'Body Mass Index' ... and not British Midland, the airline, which was sold off a few years ago. I assume they were sold off because they were doing badly and it seems to me too much of a coincidence that this occurred at around the same time as the National Health Service's 'Body Mass Index' campaign, which no doubt had pushed British Midland off page one of google search results on 'BMI', damaging their sales figures. I wonder if British Midland sued the NHS.