I’ve written ad nauseam about my journey with my weight. Not so much here, but on my other blog at http://johnhurlbut/blog It’s been something I’ve struggled with all of my life. I mean I have literally tried everything to lose weight. Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, Cabbage Soup Diet, Hypnosis, Lap Band Surgery, I have done them all and a host of other things as well. Right now my journey includes 3010 Weight Loss For Life. And to be honest, it’s the most success I’ve had with a diet (lifestyle change) ever. I’m currently down 42 pounds in 9 weeks. Now do the math on that and it’s just shy of 5 pounds per wek. I’ve got 9 weeks left and am hopeful for another 30-40 pounds in that time. If that happens, I’ll be about 20 pounds heavier than when I graduated high school. That just blows my mind.
I’ve been trying on things in my closet lately that either only fit for a brief moment in time, or that honestly never fit. A good example are the shirts I received for various athletic events I participated in. Triathlons, half marathons, 5ks and the like. Oddly enough the shirts they give you at those events only go up to XXL. I guess they don’t think morbidly obese people work out! Tonight I grabbed a shirt that I thought was one of my 3XL Under Armour shirts and put it on only to realize it was one of my Rock N Roll 1/2 marathon shirts, Portland 2012 to be exact. And it fit. And it’s XXL. And it’s made by Brooks. While I’ve been able to fit into XXL shirts in the recent past, NEVER in a Brooks XXL or Nike XXL shirt. They’ve all been super tight and showed off all my curves (rolls). But not tonight, tonight it was almost loose. Almost.
Today coming into the office, my managing broker, Bobbie, stopped me and said that the last couple of times I’ve walked by her office window she’s had to do a double take. That normally she can tell who is walking by using just her peripheral vision, but the last couple of times when I’ve walked by she had to look again to see it was me. She says my whole body shape has changed, that I look younger. Nice compliment to be sure. More people have been walking up to me telling me I look great and asking what I’ve been doing. My wife says I’m sexy.
While Teri was shopping at Coldwater Creek tonight at Kent Station, I wandered down to Roadrunner Sports. They’re a local running store that first outfit me with some running shoes when I set out to run my first half marathon. Before we left the house tonight I changed from the Portland Rock N Roll shirt to the Las Vegas shirt. Now previously walking into Roadrunner, I usually had to find some one to help me. I’m not sure if it was the shirt, or the slimmer me, but I had no less than three employees ask me if I was looking for new shoes tonight. Maybe it was a combination of the two. I bought some gifts for friends, and as I was checking out, the dude behind the counter started asking me about he Rock N Roll Vegas course. Where it went, where do they do packet pickup, where is a good place to stay. Just a couple runners shooting the shit about a half marathon. It was kind of surreal actually.
Here is the problem. I don’t see it. With any luck by the weekend I’ll be in the 260’s. That’s still by all measures a large human being. Not to take anything away from where I’ve come from, I’ll bet prior to my lap band surgery, I was close to or above 370. I’ve lost 100 pounds +/- and I don’t care who you are, that’s a huge accomplishment. (Pun intended). But when I look in the mirror, I still SEE 370 pounds. I can remember being at or near 370 (I never actually SAW that figure on the scale, but I know deep down had I taken the time to weigh myself, I would have) thinking I wanted to be 220 and what an overwhelmingly HUGE task that was to lose 150 pounds. Well now 50 pounds doesn’t seem so far out of the realm of possibility. I just wish I could see my new weight when I look in the mirror.
I can certainly FEEL those 100 pounds. It’s much easier to do even mundane things like getting out of a chair, or climbing a flight of stairs, or getting into the left seat of a Cessna 172. I would like to get one of the vests they give Biggest Loser contestants with the 100 pounds on it and walk around for a few hours with it on to REALLY drive home how really crappy I felt. I know I never want to be that heavy again. It’s just scary after doing al the things I’ve done, I know how easy it is to slip back into old habits and put that weight right back on. I’m going to have to be obsessive/compulsive about how I look at my weight in the future. Gain 5 pounds, don’t let it be 6, get the 5 off.
The really nice thing is that now I KNOW what my body needs for fuel and what I need to do to lose the weight should it start to creep back on. I just have to be diligent about managing it.
If anyone has any ideas on how to change my perception, that would be grand.