Welcome to our first Friday Feature. We’re hoping to keep up with this, and talk about our weight loss journey. They were separate for a long time, as we both had lost 100lbs by the time we met. . . but the journey continues as we work to stay in shape and healthy in our marriage. If anyone has questions/ideas/topics for this, we’d love to try and answer them. For the first feature, we’re going to talk about . . . THE MOMENT. . . the one in which we realized it was time to change.
I was unhappy a lot of the time. Not about my life, or the people who were in it. But about myself. I had a constant negative voice in my head telling me I would never be attractive, I could never lose weight. I justified what I ate all day long, every day. The people around me were so supportive. They did not push me, they tried to gently suggest weight loss and different things to try. But me? I wanted an easy fix. I wanted diet pills that I could take and magically lose weight. I wanted to those commericals that claim you can take this pill and change nothing else, and be beautiful. In short, I was lazy. But I was also overwhelmed. It’s like walking into a room that is completely trashed. I didn’t know where to begin, and I was to embarrassed to ask for help. I have always been overweight – well, since elementary school on. But I didn’t gain the majority of my extra weight until I moved out, and was living on my own. Part of it was that we could only afford crap food (don’t get me started on the cost of healthy food and the connection of obesity and poverty). But part of it was also I didn’t have my Mom’s influence – who cooked balanced meals and who I at least walked 20 minutes with every night after dinner. Part of it was just pure laziness, and I wanted to be like every other (in my eyes) college student who lived on pizza and macaroni and cheese. I went to the school gym once or twice (oh, how I wish I had valued that gym then like I would now), but I was never committed. In fact, I didn’t commit to weight loss until I had completed my degree and weighed in at (at least) 257 pounds. I may have weighed more than that at some point, I avoided scales like the plague. The one clear moment I remember was walking at the Race for the Cure, and a little kid pointing to me and asking his Mom why I was so fat. Kids have no filter. Just unbridled truth. Everyone knows, that you can’t commit to losing weight because other people want you to, or even because you know you should. Something has to switch in your brain. I am thankful every day, for the moments in that year that finally switched on my brain. I am even more thankful to Stacey who learned how to cook healthy meals and went to the gym with me for hours. And my Mom, who supported me and shared her advice on weight loss, and gave me a food scale and a good understanding of how to begin looking at portion control. As soon as I was ready, they were right there to support me. Without that support, I don’t know where I’d be. People take weight loss on as their own personal journey – and it is personal – but I believe my success comes from having the support of people around me. For once, I didn’t feel alone. I didn’t have to avoid talking about my weight, or try and draw attention away from it. I could ask questions, and hear the answers (even if I didn’t like them). But also? I could celebrate with them on each milestone along the way!
My story has many similarities to Jenn’s, but a lot of differences, too. I was always fat. As far back as I can remember, I was the fat kid in the group. I used to play outside some as a little kid, but as I grew older, I quickly moved to indoor sedentary activities. In fact, a few years ago I got a copy of my medical file and my doctor actually noted when I was about 9 or 10 that “all I wanted to do was play Atari”. I also discovered that when I was in 12 and in seventh grade, I weighed 40 pounds more than I do now at almost 33.
Another reason for my excessive weight was the fact that I come from a very food focused family. I am closely related to a lot of good cooks who like to center occassions around eating. One difference between me and Jenn was that I wasn’t really that ashamed of myself; I reveled in how much crap I could eat. I once ate a chocolate cupcake without my hands, in one bite. I ate a chocolate mousse desert that fell on the floor (like a whole big cake-sized dessert meant for like 6 or 8 people).
It kind of hit me sometime after college that I seemed to be excessively huge. By then I was probably 300+ (I also avoided scales). I had to be selective on which shirts I wore…only a couple of XXXL ones covered up my gigantic gut. The Spongebob shirt I am wearing in the photo was one of the better shirts for covering myself up, and as you can see, it still didn’t quite do the job (I believe it was only XXL).
Throughout my twenties, I kept finding signs that the shameless crisco party that I had been engaged in all my life was going to have to stop. I would occassionally think about losing weight, but it always seemed like a dream that would never be real and just wasn’t meant for me. When I was 24 or so, I found that the shoulder bar that came down over me on a county fair ride was so tight that it hurt. I actually felt my shoulders for like a week after that. The next year, I got on a Merry-Go-Round with some friends and the operator made me get off my horse and onto that one bench that those rides always have. I can think of other situations, but you get the idea.
The worst one was the hang glider ride at the Cumberland Fair in 2006. I was 28, and had finally gotten a job at a good company with very nice insurance benefits, so that summer I went back to my doctor for the first time since the early 90s and got weighed in at 337, my maximum recorded weight (although it also could have gotten a little higher because I avoided scales). I thought at the time that maybe it was time to do something since I was almost 30, but the thought evaporated pretty quickly.
So now here I was at the fair getting onto the hang glider ride a few months later. On this particular ride, you lay on your stomach in groups of three and a safety bar comes down over your back and locks to hold you in. The ride then takes you around in a circle while your “hand glider” moves up and down. It was my favorite ride, and every year I thought fearfully to myself “THIS will be the year that I’m too big to fit”. Well 2006 was the year. The operator couldn’t get it down over my massive back fat and I had to get off while the two 12 year olds I was with got to see how embarrassed I was at how fat and pathetic I had become.
I began doing exercises secretly at home…well, I’d walk up and down the stiars for 2 or three minutes at a time and do armcurls with 5 lb dumbbells while sitting in an easy chair reading comics. Luckily, our office has a wellness program (and comittee) and I work closely with one of it’s members. She gave me a few tips to get me started, and got be set up with a personal trainer (part of our awesome benefits). And so the long journey began.
About a year later, I met Jenn and she further inspired me. I’m so fortunate to be so close to someone who has been through the same thing and has the same drive to be healthy as me. She helped me kick it up even further, and now I’m 160 pounds lighter and around my 5th grade weight!
There’s plenty more that can be said, but those will have to wait for future (We Used To Be) Fat Fridays! As Jenn said, feel free to ask questions, or submit ideas or topics! Have a nice day and stay healthy!
