The Time I Got Obese

This one is kind of an old-y, but I'm still fat enough to make this work. Let's go for the Gold! So, a few months back...(I guess six months by now), I went to the doctor because my health insurance was going to run out and I probably had not had a check up since Lucy Liu fell of the face of the earth (circa 2003).

To preempt this story, I must note that I had noticed that I had slowly been gaining weight. But, sadly, its one of those things where you see yourself in the mirror everyday and you don't notice the gradual change. So essentially, one day you wake up and your like holy shit, I could be a body double for John Goodman (this is more true than you know, as I grow hair like a hibernating bear preparing for winter). The real moment came for me when I looked at what seemed to be Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon interpretations of me on facebook (not the greatest feeling in the world). This was shortly followed by my dad telling me he was proud I had kept the weight off after college, because he had gotten up to around 250 lbs. I immediately weighed myself. 245 (or approximately half the weight of a small European car.)

Then I started obsessing about the weight. I would watch basketball games and see stats pop up:

Amare Stoudamire - 6' 11'' - 250 LBS.

Wait wait wait. I am as fat as a large black basketball player, whose muscle weighs more than fat? If I was as muscular as him I'd weigh a metric ton. It soon got even worse when I delved into football statistics and started seeing that I weighed as much as linebackers, people who beat people for a living. I briefly considered trying out for an NFL team before doing 10 minutes worth of cardio (which subsquently put me about 3 minutes short of cardiac arrest).

What made all of this even worse, was that when people looked at me they really couldn't tell I was fat (maybe a little). I could see it when I look in the mirror with my shirt off. But the fat doesn't show anywhere other than my face, my chest and my stomach. I started playing a game called "guess my weight" (mainly because it would always make me feel better about myself) where people would normally ball park me around 185 or 200 tops. Oh, the things us fatties will do for positive re-enforcement. My only regret in playing this game was not betting them beforehand that they would NOT come with in 45 lbs of my actual weight. I would have bet them 10 pints of Ben & Jerrys's AmeriCone Dream ice cream. And I would have eaten them all in one night with my bare hands.

So back to the doctor (who I would've played this game with had they not weighed me before hand, as it would be more of a challenge and I was working my way up to carnie folk, the cream of the weight guessing crop). After weighing in at a svelt 246 and measuring 6' 1" I waited in the examine room dreading the shots I would need, the ball touching, and the weight issue. Turns out I needed a Tetanus shot (which gave me a dead arm for 3 days) and she did indeed touch my balls while I coughed. (There is nothing as embarassing as pulling down your pants as a doctor sits in front of you and your parts just happen to be at eye level. So many questions of awkwardness run through your head, that it might be easier to just have your friend check it back home or do a self test as instructed by Tom "one ball" Green.) But that is another story for another day.

She then noted that I had huge tonsils (which led to "The Time I Got My Throat Cut 1 & 2") and we moved onto the weight issue. She pulled out her fancy chart to tell me what my weight should be for my height. I believe she said between 185 and 200. Meaning I was 46 pounds overweight. 6 Thanksgiving turkeys too many. Then she pulled it out "You are actually just on the edge of being obese." I tried to pull the "but I don't look that, right?" card, but she knew better than to stroke my ego. She told me of a few books that would help me lose weight, excerise, eat better, the usual thing Oprah would say after she loses 20 lbs for the 867th time.

I knew what I had to do, I had already bought a stationary bike, now it was time to ride it. At least 5 times a week (for a newly obese kid this is probably the equivalent of you trying to hike a mountain daily, not Mt. Everest, but maybe the second largest mountain in the world. Kilimanjaro. Yeah, so let's just say I climbed Kilimanjaro 5 days a week for 2 months.) I started eating better (i.e. not eating Wendy's 5-6 times a week).

NOTE: This was the absolute hardest transition after college. There are no meals that someone will make for you at any time during the day. And after working 10 hour days at my old job the easiest thing to do was grab Wendy's on the way home. I mean Wendy loved me, so ...why wouldn't I love her back. I didn't want to be rude and I was too lazy to leave her. It was the perfect relationship.

But I got the book "Mindless Eating" and read 21/22 chapters (still unfinished to this day). It coincided with a show on TLC, which was basically the same thing. Little things you do to make your brain not want food. (Only take a little bit of food out of the kitchen at a time, don't clean your plate...oh god, I'm preaching, let's skip ahead)

So I continued to eat better and work out and before I knew it I had lost about 15 pounds. Then I hit the plateau everyone hits, where you don't lose 2 lbs a week because all the easy fat has already been sweated and shitted out of your system. I got the new job which requires me to walk anywhere from 5-10 miles a day but I stopped working out due to my living situation. Luckily I kept the weight off with all the walking and worked out occaisionally, but not enough. I didn't lose more weight until my surgery which prompted a quick 5 lb weight loss in 3 days. (I recommend this to Keira Knightley before the Oscars this year, she's looking a little ...thick...in the middle.)

The surgery caused me to stop working out completely and so I've probably gained some weight back and currently I sit at 225 (my lowest point was 218). So, at least I'm not technically obese, I'm probably just plain "overweight" , or if I was a 12 year old boy "Husky". The moral of this story is I need another kick in the pants to get down to 200 by years end, weight loss safety be damned, I need to look good for my naked Christmas Calendar photo shoot! So, in the comments section leave your best one line comment about how fat and ugly I am. Bonus points for "fat" synonyms I have not used, as well as grotesque photoshopped (you won't have to photoshop too hard) images of me.