January 19th, 2012: No weight loss. Still at 333, and this makes two days. Two days of scratching my head and still wondering if I should remain a believer. I’m hoping this will be a “stair-step” week where nothing happens on the scale – until it does. I really would prefer a pound a day. I really wish this were more predictable. I really wish a+b would always = c and I would move down the scale as if it were a ski slope. A black-diamond ski slope.
I quit drinking altogether three years ago, and that’s a story itself. I thought I would deflate. Hell no! I inflated to 331 lbs., almost overnight!! It was like I was reaching into the cupboard everyday, pulling out a pound, and attaching it to myself. I think I totally replaced Bud Light with brownies, pizza, and cookies. When I finally quit drinking, I was up to 18 beers per night – on a work night, and that’s no bullshit. A weekend just meant an extra 6 tall-boys, and holidays I just added a fifth of whiskey to all that beer. I could hold more alcohol than a bathtub. When I finally decided to do this, i.e. 19 days ago, an average dinner for me consisted of an ENTIRE Papa Murphy’s Family Size Chicago Style pizza – every bite dipped in Ranch. An average breakfast was an ENTIRE pan of Ghirardelli chocolate brownies. If it was a workday, I didn’t eat lunch at work because I’m too embarrassed, but on weekends my lunch was usually Taco Bell, and the total would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $25. I once ate a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts at a sitting – in less than 20 minutes, and it wasn’t even an eating contest. I have no questions about why I am where I am. I’ve heard that acceptance is a solid first step toward recovery.
January 19th, 2020 (retrospective): I bit my tongue often during those lonely first days, and I don’t mean literally. Things that used to make me shrug my shoulders and unconsciously tell myself that “it’s okay, I can go home and have a great big dinner” now have to be dealt with like a mature adult. I don’t have quick enough processing speed to fire back at insults, I didn’t take many comments like “water off a duck’s back”, and it didn’t help that I sometimes forgot to “check my ego at the door”. Yes, you can be fat and also have an enormous ego. I didn’t have tobacco or alcohol or huge meals to smooth the rough edges of an offhand comment or low blow from somebody. I carried a lot of fat, but it was beneath a surprisingly thin skin that seemed to get thinner as I got fatter. Any sense of humor I had about obesity then was just me acting – every goddamn word hurt. I didn’t feel funny, and I’m sure as hell no comedian.
I won’t tell anyone I’m on a diet, and swore everyone in my family to secrecy. I recommend you be very careful to whom you reveal your weight loss plans. Instead, maybe just show, don’t tell. On second thought, I mean that as gospel: Show, don’t tell. If you tell anyone you’re on a diet, it seems like the derailing process begins and the comments will come at you like curve balls from hell. The confusing and junk pitch problem is that it’s not the content that comes from their mouth, it’s the patronizing way it gets delivered: “Oh, good for you!” You know exactly how this sounds. My train had barely left the station, and was still going slow enough that people arriving late to the depot could run along beside it, and call out stupid shit to me, even if they meant no harm. You’ve got to be careful whose advice you follow, there are dragons in that forest.
