I Lost a Person
| Weight (current) | 306lbs. 13oz. |
| Weight (at birth) | 7lbs. 7oz. |
| Total Weight Gain | 299lbs. 6oz. |
The idea for this blog came up a couple of years ago. Stephanie and I were on the South Beach Diet, and doing really well. I started out at 352lbs. and had reached a big milestone. I was down to 252lbs. I had lost 100lbs.! My friend Matt said, “Wow, that’s more than my daughter weighs. You lost a person!” “Yeah,” I thought, “I lost a person.”
I was trying to get down to 199lbs., and that goal was finally in sight. I had lost one person of weight. Maybe it was a small person, but it was still fun to think of “a person” as a unit of measurement. But “I Lost a Person” worked on a different level for me. I thought I had left behind all of the baggage that went along with being overweight. I had new clothes. People at work noticed the change. I was getting compliments all the time. I lost a person – the fat person that I used to be.
I thought I had it all figured out. Not only had I lost so much weight, I did it without exercising. I went to the gym twice, overdid it both times to the point where I couldn’t lift my arms without wincing in pain, and decided to chuck the whole idea of exercise for a while. So, my weight loss was all diet — all me — pure will power.
People were constantly asking me for advice. They wanted to know my secret. They couldn’t believe that I had lost 100 lbs without doing any exercise. I bragged about all of the foods I had given up that other people could never live without (white bread, pasta, potatoes, beer, you name it). I felt great about myself and thought I had all the answers. I would start a blog and call it “I Lost a Person” and I would pass my wisdom on to the world.
And I would never be fat again.
When you’re overweight, being thin can seem monumental, life-changing, all-important and all-consuming. It can seem like a state of perfection that is a final destination. “One day, I will be thin,” we pledge to ourselves. But, we rarely think about what kind of person we’re going to be the day after that “one day.”
So, I’m writing this to say there is no destination. There is no state of perfection. Getting thin is just a series of thousands of little decisions, one after another. We have to make dozens of these decisions a day. The thing that I have come to realize is that I own all of the consequences of my decisions.
I can’t reconcile, “I want to eat a cheeseburger with fries” with “I want to lose weight.” If I decide to eat the cheeseburger and fries, I’m also deciding that I want to gain weight. If I decide that I want to lose weight, then I’m also deciding that I don’t want to eat the cheeseburger and fries. That’s it. It’s that simple. The decisions we must make are neverending.
So, after having gained back over half of that 100lbs. back, I have lost something as well. I no longer think of food as “bad” or “good”, or of myself as either for having eaten it (or not). Now, I think about the direction that I want to be going in, and whether the next step I take (which is the only thing I can control right now) is going in that direction.
I lost the unrealistic notion of reaching perfection. I lost the smug feeling that I know it all. I lost the idea that I was a “fat person” that was becoming a “thin person.”
This insight has changed who I am, and once again, I lost a person.