To introduce myself, I'm a 21 year old college student at a university in New York City. I have been a generally fit and in shape person, but I wasn't always that way.
When I was thirteen, I weighed 183 pounds. 183 pounds isn't massively obese, but it's definitely not terrific for a 5'7" kid. Every year at my annual checkup, my doctor would tell me to lose weight and every year, I would swear that yes, I was going to do it. I never did. The siren song of (yummy) chocolate and (tasty) fried foods was too much for me. I couldn't, wouldn't stop eating them.
My self-esteem suffered. I had friends, but I felt developmentally behind everybody else in my grade. I know this is a normal feeling for teenagers, but I could pinpoint the reasons for my unhappiness and yet was unable to change them.
Now typically, moments of epiphany don't happen in real life. We leave those up to our fiction writers, who write them into stories for the sake of dramatic simplicity. I swear, It happened to me. I came home from school one day and I decided that I had simply had enough. It wasn't one event or anything--nobody had made fun of me. I'd just had enough. So I ran. It hurt. A lot. I ran again the next day. And the next. And so on.
My diet improved. I started eating fruits and salads, making healthy choices, feeling good about myself. The weight started to drop off. I remember hitting 165 and feeling amazing. 145 felt even better. Finally, I dropped to 135. I was now within my average weight range. People didn't recognize me. I went to events with my family and they would inquire after why I hadn't come that evening. They didn't realize the skinny kid was actually me. I stopped actively trying to LOSE weight and started trying to maintain, which can be a dangerous step. But the weight kept coming off. I sunk as low as 128, which is honestly too skinny. My doctor told me to start lifting weights and I did. I put on a little more mass, a little more muscle weight. I felt great.
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OKAY, you say, that is terrific Julian what an uplifing story--but why the hell are you posting this here? Well, here's my problem. Over the last year or so, I've started to put some weight back on. I began to get lazy with my eating habits first...then I stopped running, started smoking cigarettes occasionally. Bad bad bad. I KNEW how incredible it felt to feel fit, but the old temptations rose again. As it stands right now, I weigh about 148 pounds again. I don't look terrible. But I've definitely looked a lot better. So here's my idea:
There are 48 days left in this election. That's not a lot of time, but it's a good amount of time to both turn around the Obama campaign and my own life at the same time. I went to the gym and ran four miles yesterday, for the first time in a long time. I felt like crap. I lifted weights. I felt weak. I'm going to keep hitting the gym for the rest of this campaign and every time I lose a pound, I'm going to donate 20 bucks to the Obama campaign. It's not a ton of money until you remember that I am a completely broke college student. But this matters to me. And so this is another moment of epiphany...I want to make sure we win this campaign. If anybody out there wants to match me, it would be an incredibly productive way to fundraise. You'd have to take my word for it, regarding the weight loss, but I wouldn't lie.
48 days to regain the healthy life habits that I know work so well, hopefully for good this time.
Anybody want to do this with me? If it's a dumb idea, tell me. I'm doing it anyways.