From the Archive - My Weight 🗄️

Originally written: Sep 25, 2020

Yesterday, I discussed a lesson on friendship that I learned from the movie Grownups. I know… random. Anyway, I had a little more I wanted to say but I felt like the post was getting a little long so I decided to split it into two parts. So here we go:

Two years ago, I lost 80 lbs. It took a while, but people started noticing at work and that felt good. The compliments poured in, I inspired two people to lose significant weight, and my confidence boosted. Having been the fat kid most of my life, it felt good to be lighter and healthier.

The weight loss helped me out of a couple of physical health obstacles and I think the self-esteem boost helped me get out of a toxic relationship. It was a super positive experience and one that I’m grateful for.

I was terrified after I reached my goal about maintaining my new weight. It also didn’t help that I started dating an amazing cook. Slowly the pounds crept back up. I decided I’d start counting calories again and then the pandemic happened. I attempted to lose a little bit of the weight, but I only have so much energy: I can work on my mental health or my physical health, but I can’t do both. I’m just not wired to handle that. I choose my mental health.

I haven’t gained all my weight back, but I have gained half of it back. I actually feel good and feel like I still look pretty decent, but there is always that lingering feeling that I’m a failure. All of those people I work with who made a big deal out of my weight loss, I imagine them whispering about how they just knew I couldn’t keep it off. I think about the snide remarks they say behind my back about how disappointing it is that I’m a lazy loser who couldn’t keep the weight off. Of course, most likely, they don’t even care or notice, but it’s hard to not imagine those sort of things.

I’ve held off on buying new clothes because I guess secretly I hoped I’d feel good mentally and jump right back on losing weight. I realized the other day that that is just not going to happen right now. I need to feel better at work, so I went to Kohls and I bought some new shirts, one size larger just to give me some breathing room and to make me feel that much better.

And let me tell you… it’s made a world of a difference this week.

I look better in clothes that fit. I feel better and I’m not constantly fumbling around with one button that kept coming unbuttoned. Sure, it felt a bit like defeat that I had to buy bigger clothes, but once I got over that mental hurdle everything else has been fantastic.

So, what changed? What prompted me to hop up on my super chill out day that I planned to watch movies and run to Kohls and buy new clothes? Well, like I said yesterday, I was watching Grownups. I saw the characters joking and having fun and accepting their overweight friend and I realized that my thoughts were stupid. Hell, the people who made a deal out of my weight loss aren’t even people I like. The people I like, liked me before I lost the weight and would like me after. I was doing the one thing I would always advise anyone not to do and that is worry about someone else thinks, especially someone you don’t even like.

I think just watching that movie jolted me enough to realize that I was acting stupid. I just needed to go buy a couple new shirts, enjoy life, stop worrying about other people, and as soon as I’m feeling better mentally, I can start calorie counting again and drop the weight just like I did last time. This definitely was not worth straining myself mentally over. Life is friggin hard right now and I’m sitting here worrying about this stupid shit. Thanks to Grownups, I’m feeling a lot better about myself this week.