One Third Off by Irvin S. Cobb — Read

It was after I had moved to New York and had taken a desk job that I / detected myself in the act, as it were, of plumping out. Cognizant of the / fact, as I was, I nevertheless took no curative or corrective measures in / the way of revising my diet. I was content to make excuses inwardly. I / said to myself that I came of a breed whose members in their mature years / were inclined to broaden noticeably. I said to myself that I was not / getting the amount of exercise that once I had; that my occupation was now / more sedentary, and therefore it stood to reason that I should take on a / little flesh here and there over my frame. Moreover, I felt good. If I had / felt any better I could have charged admission. My appetite was perfect, / my digestion magnificent, nay, awe-inspiring.

To me it seemed that physically I was just as active and agile as I had / been in those 'prentice years of my professional career when the ability / to shift quickly from place to place and to think with an ornithological / aptitude were conducive to a continuance of unimpaired health among young / reporters. Anyhow -- thus I to myself in the same strain, / continuing -- anyhow, I was not actually getting fat. Nothing so gross as / that. I merely was attaining to a pleasant, a becoming and a dignified / fullness of contour as I neared my thirtieth birthday. So why worry about / what was natural and normal among persons of my temperament, and having my / hereditary impulses, upon attaining a given age?