Rome was not built in a day. I keep telling myself that as I realize that in my struggle, there's no such thing as an "instant cure." For me to overcome my problems, success has to be measured in small steps rather than the achievement of the overall goal. I think that's what has been the most difficult thing for me to conquer.
See, for my entire adult life, and for most of my juvenile life, I have struggled with my weight. That's really an understatement - it's been a problem that has absolutely kicked my rear end. I spent years and years making excuses for why I allowed myself to get so big. I wouldn't say I ever blamed anybody else, but I certainly shied away from the responsibility.
It started back when I was about 10 years old. Prior to that, I was your typical active kid. Playing little league, running around with the energy you'd expect a kid that age to have. But from what I remember, things started to change the year I spent the summer staying with my grandparents.
She lived in an isolated area outside Grayling, Michigan, so there weren't really any other kids my age around. Grandpa would take me to the lake to swim on days when the weather cooperated, We'd usually close our days with ice cream, and we'd repeat our routine the next day. It was an absolute blast for a kid to have his grandparents really roll out the red carpet for him - in retrospect, it was especially nice for me to be able to spend some quality time with my grandpa because he ended up having a debilitating stroke less than six months later that left him almost blind, nearly deaf, and unable to recognize his family.
When I went home that summer, I had added a few pounds. Going through my adolescent years, I was always a stocky kid. I had an appetite that rivaled the adults around me, but fortunately, I was pretty active. I still played baseball up until I was 16, and that helped me stay somewhat in shape.
When my parents split up, I withdrew from a lot of the activities that I had enjoyed so much through the years. What I ate didn't change - in fact it probably increased. Recently, I've come to terms with the fact that stress seems to trigger my overeating. Again, something I should be able to overcome, but at that point, I certainly wasn't thinking about it.
When my parents would ask me about my weight - I'd eat more. When people tried to help - I pushed them away. I feel like I developed a drug addict's mentality, and food was my drug.
When I went away to college, nothing really changed, other than the fact that I added a good dose of beer to the amount of food I was eating. I ballooned. My social life didn't really suffer (although I certainly wasn't lucky with the ladies for the most part) because I was the fat, funny guy that people liked to be around. Occasionally I'd get a girlfriend, but let's face it, I was a pretty miserable person to be around a lot of the time. I felt sorry for myself when it was ME who was to blame for my condition. It got worse and worse. That's certainly not attractive, especially to some of the good women willing to give me the time of day when nobody else would. Naturally, those relationships didn't last long.
After graduating college, my overeating and weight gain just continued. My job was not one that was conducive to eating healthy foods, with all the travel I did - but being completely honest, it probably wouldn't have mattered. I don't think I really cared.
Through all this time, there were times I tried dieting. There were times I tried exercising. Nothing worked, although, this was due to my not giving it enough time. I certainly didn't get as big as I did overnight. The weight wasn't going to melt off overnight.
But in this day and age I think we are conditioned to value instant gratification, and I was certainly not any different than anyone else in that respect. When it didn't come off immediately, I would give up. Sure, I might have lost 15 pounds. But then I gained 30 back. And then some. Eventually I became so heavy, my digital bathroom scale just gave me an error message every time I stepped on because it only went to 300 pounds.
My doctor's scale only went to 350. So when I climbed past that, I just automatically put "355" under my weight on everything I ever had to fill out for a doctor. I knew I was getting bigger. My clothes weren't fitting anymore, so I was going one size up. Frequently.
Of course my parents worried about me whenever I'd come home to stay with them, but they knew by then that saying anything wasn't going to help. In fact, it'd only probably trigger another eating episode.
Sometime in 2005, I started to look into the possibility of gastric bypass. I only really started to consider that when my weight got to be so much I had difficulty going up the four steps on my porch to get into my house, let alone walk or do any other sort of exercise. I was devastated when I found out that my insurance company had a written exclusion policy for any treatments for weight loss.
To this day, I find it criminal that some insurance companies will specifically not allow for any treatments for weight loss but will gladly pay for the treatments that will eventually cost them far more money - bypass surgeries, treatment for heart attacks, not to mention the laundry list of other co-morbidities that come with obesity.
In the winter of 2006, my mother pulled me aside and asked me if I had ever considered lap band surgery. I told her I had looked into it but my insurance company wouldn't even consider paying for it.
I'll never forget the next thing she said.
"Okay, then I will."
We immediately started looking into the surgery. I went in for a pre-surgical consultation in December of 2006. I certainly wasn't the largest person they've ever seen in the bariatric surgeon's office, so they had a scale that would more than accomodate someone of my size. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and stepped on.
472.8.
I started sobbing. I wanted to step out of my body and kick my own ass for doing this to myself. How much of an idiot could I possibly be?
I gathered myself and went in to talk to the doctor. It seemed like the whole consultation was trying to talk me out of the surgery - by letting me know all the risks that went along with it, and that this was only something that I should do if I was willing to change my lifestyle.
I went ahead with it, and had the surgery in March 2007. It was the best thing that's ever happened to me. The weight started melting off.
I started developing healthier eating habits, and even started running before my family doctor told me not to even think about running until I was under 300 pounds. The weight loss continued until I hit 315.
Then I plateaued. And the bad habits started to come back. Over the course of a year, I gained back 62 pounds. But now, I'm willing to get serious about my issues.
My problems are not going to be cured with a surgery. The surgery was the way of getting things started so I physically COULD do the things that will carry me the rest of my way to my goal. Two weeks ago, I joined Weight Watchers, and I've thus far been happy with the program. I feel like now I can celebrate every small milestone and keep celebrating those milestones until I get where I want to be.
Someone very smart told me "You don't lose 200 pounds all at once. You do it by losing one pound 200 times."
That's the mentality I'm taking going forward. I'm not going to let this dominate my life. I don't want to go to an early grave. I have a loving wife, a beautiful baby daughter, and a whole hell of a lot to live for. I'm not going to let my weight define me.
I am going to conquer this demon. Over the last two weeks, I've dropped 12 pounds. Or as I'm looking at it now, I've dropped one pound 12 times. And I'm going to keep it up. I am building healthier eating habits. I am working out at the gym for at least 30 minutes a day. And I am going to make sure that once and for all, I take charge of my future and don't fall victim to my knife and fork.
I think I have a far healthier outlook on my problems now than I have at any time in the past, even after the surgery when I was shedding the pounds like a Persian cat sheds fur. I will celebrate incremental change because I have to. I refuse to go back in the wrong direction.
To me, I've learned a valuable lesson. There's no such thing as overnight change. You have to lay a good foundation and build towards your eventual goal. And it's not just my weight problem that can be addressed like this - the problems in this country have to be looked at the same way. We've got to stop the bleeding and stop the rightward slide. But we're not going to undo the damage of 30 years of Reaganomics in one day. But like my weight gain, we've got to stop it in its tracks before it kills us.
Thanks to those of you who will take the time to read this. I realize I have nobody to blame but myself for getting in this position. But I am taking responsibility for my shortcomings that led to this. I'm not entirely sure what inspired me to write this diary, or what inspired me to share it with my friends here at DK (in my first DK4 diary, no less!), but I do feel a bit of catharsis for having shared.