In this book, I am going to be pretty harsh on many things. I am going to be unforgiving on how you think about yourself. I am going to be tough on convincing you that you actually can achieve good health…because at some time, you are going to want to throw in the towel. I am going to be very critical of how we, as a society, are adapting to the ‘fat’ condition instead of countering it. Many of the things I have to say are, initially, not going to be pleasant to hear. I am not going to coddle or be kind about a condition I have learned to take very seriously. The first thing people will want to do is destroy the messenger.
“It’s real easy for a thin person to dictate to the rest of us.”
“It is too hard when you are this big!”
“He has no idea how we feel.”
Wrong. On all counts. I know exactly what it feels like. I have fought a battle with weight my whole life. I know what it is like to be very big. I know what it is like to not be able to fit into a seat on a plane or at an old-time baseball park. I know what it is like to not fit in normal sized clothes. I know what it is like to be denied employment because of my size, turned down for dates, and made fun of. I don’t know what it is like to be morbidly obese but if you are 3 times the size that I was at my peak, I do know you probably have 3 times as many health problems and 10 times as many emotional issues tied to your size. And lastly, I do know what it is like to get so large that you need to choose an alternative, and perhaps drastic, route to losing the weight. That, you will find out, was the ‘never again’ breaking point for me. I don’t need to understand the precise nature of your exact pain to understand the pain of being fat. I get it.
I also get something else. I have lost over 50 lbs from my frame about 4 times in my life. Losing between 50 and 85-90 lbs is hard. I give myself credit for being able to do it. I have also had times in my life when I gained it all back and then some. In those cases, I blame myself for letting my size and health get so badly out of hand. I have been very thin and I have been massive. I know the highs of being a person who was in shape and at least attractive enough to get dates with cute girls. I know the lows of not being able to climb stairs without breathing heavy or sitting on a piece of lawn furniture and having it blow apart under my huge frame. I didn’t get large because of something natural, like being pregnant. I did it the fun way. I did it by eating whatever I felt like, not exercising, not considering my health, and never looking at myself critically enough to make an honest personal assessment of my condition. Unlike most of you, I know both sides of this coin. I know the journey very well and I know what it will take for you to get back to healthy. So if you bought this book because you need help, the first thing you have to understand is that I am coming from a place that is very much, if not exactly, right where you are right now. I also know where you need to go. Don’t read what I am saying and fall into the trap of ‘shooting the messenger.’ As hard as I am going to be on these topics, I really do get it.
I am 48 years old as of this writing. I was born in 1962 in Rhode Island, to a French/Irish family. I can remember, as a child of the 60’s and 70’s, when television had only 3 major networks and a handful of local UHF stations. From 9AM to 11AM there were talk shows and from 11AM to 4PM, nothing but soap operas. There wasn’t any cable and no computers to sit in front of for hours on end. It was a time when kids left the house at 8:30AM in the summer and didn’t come back until dinner. You never knew where they were or how they ate lunch (or if!). We walked everywhere and, if you had one, also rode our bicycles. We rode for miles every day, not point to point, just due to continuous activity.
In my neighborhood, there was a field at the end of my street (referred to by all of us as, of course, ‘the field’) that was always full of kids. There was a playground area and one baseball diamond. Not a formal diamond like they have today with dugouts, fences and a real homeplate…this diamond was created by kids actually playing on it. The playing surface was grass and the infield was made of dirt, but not because some Little League Committee groomed it. It was made of dirt from the constant wear of running the bases. It was a time when the base path and the infield were dirt because it was used from sunup to sundown and the grass was trampled to death by the kids and the game itself. There were days when the neighborhood teams fought over who would use it, the loser having to play in the other corner of the lot and make a ‘fake’ diamond. We would use the players’ gloves of the batting team as bases. The field had holes, bumps, rocks and divots. Sometimes there was glass from a broken bottle. There were no umpires, only the rules we made and enforced among ourselves. We didn’t need organized play. We lived to play outside by ourselves.
I also remember being a kid who loved food. I had a Grandmother and some older Aunts who were awesome cooks. They came from a farming family in Canada and had moved to New England to start their own families in the early 1900’s and get a different life. They cooked from ‘scratch’ all the time. In the 60’s and 70’s, that wasn’t entirely uncommon, but there were a lot of prepared foods and desserts that were starting to be produced. We would have Sunday dinner at their house and visit them a couple times a week. These were women who were used to cooking for a family of working farmers in Canada. The meals were hearty ones with lots of meat, potatoes, butter and milk. My Aunt Gert used to make these Tollhouse cookies that I would eat 8-9 at a pop. These meals would have been great for me if I was about to go outside and run the cows back and forth from the far pasture or spend the next 6 hours bailing hay. But I wasn’t. I was just a normal kid eating like a farmer. It was at this point in my life, around 8-10 years of age, when my happy relationship with food was cultivated.
At this point in my life, the eating was balanced with activity…but slowly, as I got slightly older and became more social and leisure oriented (still as a kid) the eating habits took their toll on me. As we moved into the mid-70’s, weekend and weeknight television quality was improving (and I do love television), much more emphasis was placed on my studies and reading, and the active lifestyle I once had in my early childhood was slowing down. I was starting to develop a ‘softer’ look as the food I took in outpaced the energy I expended. My inherited and undisciplined eating habits had steered me straight to the Husky pants section of the local clothing store.
Stores in the 70’s were not accommodating to the fat people. There was no ‘Plus Size’ section or a real “Big and Tall” store. If you were one of the fat ones, it was embarrassing. You had to get special pants and wear baggy shirts, and nothing fit right. Most of the other kids were in good physical shape. If you were fat, you stood out. You were the Catcher on the little league team and the ‘blocker’ when playing football. You sat the bench in basketball because that sport required speed and agility, and fat kids weren’t fast or stealthy. If you didn’t get involved and play, you were lonely. There weren’t a lot of sports either. Not like the plethora of activities kids have today. If you didn’t play one of the major sports, you didn’t play. You didn’t have a computer and a social network either. You didn’t have the ability to create a thin avatar and hide behind it so people couldn’t see you.
There were no diet foods back then. Think about that one for a moment. NO diet food existed. If you went on a ‘diet’ it meant one thing and one thing only, disciplined eating habits. There were no foods created specifically to accommodate the fatties. The other kids had Ring Dings and Yodels for their lunch dessert, you got an apple not some apple tart with Splenda. They had ice cream for a snack while you had a couple crackers and a little peanut butter. They didn’t make ‘low fat’ anything back then. There was actually a dietary form of ice cream called ‘Ice Crystals.’ What the hell was an ice crystal? You know what it was? It was what we fat kids ate. That’s all you needed to know. The other kids drank regular milk…you got skim. There were only two types of milk back then, not 8-10 different forms of it. If you had the skim, it was different. It was watered down milk and you could actually tell the difference with your eyes! You didn’t even have to drink the stuff to know what it was. Foods for the fatties weren’t disguised so that you could be like everyone else. If you were on a ‘diet’ everyone knew. It wasn’t a badge of honor to be ‘dieting.’ It was something you had to do when you were not the same as everyone else, not healthy and not fitting in. If you didn’t fit in, society did not pander to your fat and unhealthy lifestyle, you just had to fix it.
How do I know so well how “living fat” was back then? How can I describe it in such vivid detail? It is because that was my first diet experience. I was eleven years old and in the fifth grade. 1973. You never forget the first one. My doctor prescribed the diet and made my mother the enforcer. She was about 30 lbs overweight at the time too, so I was in great hands. You also never forget how it felt to be different in a bad way. You can always feel the first sting of being slighted in sports or socially because someone looked at you like you were less than everyone else. You will always remember the little girl you had the crush on who would never consider you as someone she would want as a ‘boyfriend.’ No matter how old you get, some things never change.
That first diet taught me a lot of things. Mainly, it taught me that I didn’t like diets. It taught me some great covert tactics on how to sneak food. It also taught me that, as much as being fat made me stick out, being on that diet made me stick out and feel miserable at the same time. I also was not very successful on the diet, so it taught me that diets are painful and don’t work. That isn’t true, but it’s what I took away from the experience.
As I progressed through High School in the late 70’s, I continued to get bigger. In High School, through the teen years, a kid’s biggest desire is social acceptance. If you were a fat kid back then (when the percentage of fat kids was a lot lower than today) you stood out. This was when I first realized that you could be the greatest person in the world on the inside, but how you looked on the outside was the first thing people judged you on. Unlike the attractive kids, who were readily accepted socially, you had to work a lot harder for that acceptance. It took a lot longer because everyone had to learn the ‘you’ on the inside. You might have to be the real smart kid who helped the others or the very funny kid who always cracked the right joke. You might lift weights so that the excess bulge was complimented with enough muscle to make you intimidating. But whatever route you attempted, acceptance would take longer. Another painful reality is that, often, that acceptance did not happen at all. Your friends became the rest of the ‘outcasts.’ Don’t misunderstand me, I know it sounds like I am being cruel and mean to the kids who fell into the group of ‘outcasts.’ I am not. I was one of them. I made some fantastic friends and found out that inner value far outweighed the persona on the outside. Those valuable lessons, however, did not offset the negative feelings of not being accepted. Those feelings were as real as any of my other meaningful discoveries.
It was in my junior year in High School that I developed a big crush on a sophomore girl. I was completely infatuated. As was typical, she found me funny to be around, but not in that boyfriend/girlfriend way. I got the opportunity to take her to a formal dance when she was unexpectedly dateless. We went ‘as friends.’ I hoped she would learn more about the real me and give me a chance. There was no way that fairy tale was going to come true. I was a big, fat, curly haired freak with glasses…who could blame her. One May night in 1979, as I lay sulking in my room and watching television, the movie ‘Rocky’ came on. I hadn’t seen it in the theater and this was its TV debut. I watched this guy who didn’t have a shot make his dreams come true. He worked his butt off to some awesome music and sweat bullets, but he pulled it off. Something changed me that night watching that movie. I looked in the mirror and swore that I was going to make my senior year different from all the past years I had experienced. I was going to change myself into something different. The next day I went out and got the vinyl record soundtrack of the movie. The day after, I began trying to jog in the mornings and watching what I was eating. I would do some warm-ups before I went and play the soundtrack over and over until it rang in my head. I couldn’t jog to save my life. I was dead after 100 yards…and my knees hurt. I was 5 foot 10 inches and weighed 225 lbs. I had a 40 inch waist. I knew nothing about dieting and continued my poor eating habits while exercising. I was miserably trying to eat right…I lost about 5 lbs that month.
As June began, I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who had lost a lot of weight in his sophomore year. I needed to know what he did. My diet was barely working and I was dying due to lack of progress. Rocky needed some help. He told me he had worn a plastic suit and that he would wear thermals under it and sweat the fat out. He said he ate a lot of fruit and drank a lot of water. Great. This was my first dietary plan. Straight from a 17 year old kid. Hey, it worked for him, right? And so my summer began. I got a little help from the girl across the street. She was a year younger than me and we had grown up together. She was also gorgeous and a swimmer/gymnast…in awesome shape. She told me, if it would help, she would run with me when she could. Even though she was like a sister to me, having her running in front of me in shorts and a tank top was like, at that point, dragging a carrot in front of a field horse. No matter how I felt, I plowed on behind her. Pretty soon, we had a good schedule going and we were running 2-3 miles every other day. I was wearing heavy sweatshirts in June, drinking tons of water and eating more fruit than an island boy. One small meal at dinner time was all I allowed myself, and I always ran after I ate it. I didn’t alter that diet for 3 months.
You know what? The weight finally started to drop materially. I started at 220 and went to 210, and then one day at the end of June, 200 pounds. That was a number I hadn’t seen in a long time. It became easier to run. My 3 miles became 5 miles per outing and the weight dropped even more. My neighbor stopped running with me, my pace was pretty fast and I didn’t really need a supporting incentive at that point. By the end of July, I was at about 180 and my Grandfather made a comment to my mother that he had never seen me look so thin and he thought I was dying. On and on I went. I would run in the sun, in the rain, or at 2AM if the feeling hit me. By late August, I was running 10 miles at a pop. I felt awesome. It was almost time to go back to school for my Senior year. My mother suggested contact lenses instead of the glasses. So we went out and got some. It was wild to be able to run in the rain and feel the mist on my eyes for the first time since 4th grade when I first had to wear glasses. Throughout the summer, I had looked at myself in the mirror every day looking for changes. When you look that closely and that frequently, you can very easily lose track of how much progress you are actually making. I knew from the scale what the numbers were, but that wasn’t translating to what I was seeing in the mirror. The visual difference was not as real to me as the numbers were. There I was, at the end of August…160 lbs.
Then the day occurred when I knew with certainty that my senior year was going to be different. I knew I had reached my goal.
I hadn’t seen any friends all summer. I had dedicated myself 100% to the weight loss. My good friend Mickey called me and asked me if I wanted to go to a movie. That sounded good to me. I went to my room that afternoon and couldn’t find any clothes that fit. I had gone the whole summer in sweatpants and wore my younger and thinner brother’s gym stuff when mine were uncomfortably baggy. I had no real pants or shirts that I could wear. My clothes from the past spring were like wearing huge potato sacks. This was real strange to me. My mother took me to get a pair of jeans and a couple shirts so I would ‘look decent.’ I tried on the jeans, size 38, then 36, 34 and then 32. 32 were the ones that fit. I had dropped 4 sizes from 40 to 32…in three months. I was looking at myself in the mirror, but I still didn’t get it.
Mickey and I got to the movies that night and we waited in line. It was a long corridor and the wall opposite us was mirrored from end to end. As we stood there in the crowd of people, I turned to look in the mirror. I could not see myself. I saw a crowd of people, but where was the fat kid formerly known as ‘me?’ With my new shirt, new jeans and contact lenses, I finally found myself amongst the other people. I stood there shocked. I looked normal. I looked like the rest of them. I looked, dare I say, in better shape than the rest and I was the same size as my thin friend. I also, very immodestly, noticed I was kind of handsome. This is going to sound sad, but I thought I was going to cry.
I will continue my story as the book goes on but suffice to say, here is where the first lesson of this book gets imparted.
The only person that you should be trying to make happy through your improved health and weight loss is YOU.
You are the only one whose opinion counts here. If you are doing this to improve some of the things going on in your life like social acceptance, a better look, etc., that is fine, so long as the driving motivating factor for this effort is your desire for a better personal condition. If you do it for you, then anybody else’s ancillary benefit from your improved health (wife, kids, etc.) will be taken care of. What I did in the summer of 1979, I did for me. I wanted something better for myself and at that point in my life, it was a better social life and acceptance from my peers. It was dates and girlfriends and the fun of being invited to the cool parties that had always gone on without me. As an adult, my motivating factors have changed but one thing has not changed whether it was my first big diet or my last one. I did it for my own happiness and for my own benefit. I did it for me. I selfishly put everything else in my life aside. Nothing trumped the effort. Nothing.
Awesome and very inspiring blog....
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