Welcome to My Journey
My name is Jerry, and I'm fat. Actually, I'm obese. More to the point, I'm severely obese. But I had been not only morbidly obese, I was super obese, which surprisingly does not come with a cape.
You see, two years ago, I was a couple pounds short of 500. I've now lost over 200 pounds. And I'm not stopping there.
It's been quite the journey getting to this point. Not only the two years to lose 200 pounds, but also the 45 years spent getting myself into such a horrible shape to begin with. I've found myself reflecting on that journey quite a bit of late, and I have a number of things to say about it. Thus this blog.
With perhaps the exception of a very small percentage who have rare medical conditions, we're not born to be fat our entire lives. It takes a lot to get to the point I was at. It takes the influence of family who were overweight themselves. It takes a lifetime of unhealthy habits started at a young age. It takes seeing yourself as hopelessly fat and feeling that it can never change. It takes accepting that you're committing suicide in the slowest manner possible.
It's a tough life, being obese. You're automatically the most hated person on any plane, train, or bus. People feel free to accost and insult you on the street, because it's believed that you deserve any abuse you receive because you are that way by choice. You are the target of tons of unsolicited advice, some of it aggressive. You are frequently bullied, particularly by medical professionals. And that's on top of the many physical ailments and practical problems that come with having too large a body.
But it doesn't have to be that way. With the right motivation, things can turn around. For me, it was falling in love with the right woman who has encouraged me and held me accountable. It was also imagining a future family that I wanted to be healthy and long-lived for.
Of course, to reverse the pattern of weight gain, it takes making significant changes and sticking to them. It's my contention that dieting isn't effective, because diets are inherently temporary. What's required are fundamental, permanent changes to behavior, including increasing the amount of exercise done. I found that making changes one at a time, adding the next change to my routine after I'd become accustomed to the last change. The result was a much healthier way of living.
It turned out that losing weight, while difficult, was way easier than I had thought it would be in all my years of being super obese. I lost my first hundred pounds in about nine months. Things slowed down after that because some habits are hard to break, and when these plateaus happen, you have to change up your strategy. But thanks to the encouragement of my lady love and others in my life, I've been able to overcome and get back on track. Keeping momentum going is key, and I hope that as the blog goes on, I'll be able to continue to report progress regularly.
And it's been worth it. Losing weight takes a lot of stress off the body, which improves energy, productivity, and, honestly, outlook. It makes shopping for clothes much easier and significantly less costly. It opens opportunities that might otherwise not be available. People respond completely differently. Sex is a thousand times better. And it becomes economically easier as food bills lessen and everyday items receive less wear and tear.
So welcome to my weight loss journey. I intend to post roughly twice a week. Some posts will be observations about weight loss and things I've learned. Some will be memoirs of my experiences. Some will be philosophical writings about obesity and health. And some will be links to resources I've found useful, recipes I use, or exercises I use to improve fitness. Almost every sentence in the paragraphs above will branch out into their own posts, and I intend to update this introduction with links to them as they're published. And if you're on your own journey, I'd love to hear about it.
-Jerry
You see, two years ago, I was a couple pounds short of 500. I've now lost over 200 pounds. And I'm not stopping there.
It's been quite the journey getting to this point. Not only the two years to lose 200 pounds, but also the 45 years spent getting myself into such a horrible shape to begin with. I've found myself reflecting on that journey quite a bit of late, and I have a number of things to say about it. Thus this blog.
 |
| 2016 vs. 2018 |
It's a tough life, being obese. You're automatically the most hated person on any plane, train, or bus. People feel free to accost and insult you on the street, because it's believed that you deserve any abuse you receive because you are that way by choice. You are the target of tons of unsolicited advice, some of it aggressive. You are frequently bullied, particularly by medical professionals. And that's on top of the many physical ailments and practical problems that come with having too large a body.
But it doesn't have to be that way. With the right motivation, things can turn around. For me, it was falling in love with the right woman who has encouraged me and held me accountable. It was also imagining a future family that I wanted to be healthy and long-lived for.
 |
| 2016 vs. 2018 |
Of course, to reverse the pattern of weight gain, it takes making significant changes and sticking to them. It's my contention that dieting isn't effective, because diets are inherently temporary. What's required are fundamental, permanent changes to behavior, including increasing the amount of exercise done. I found that making changes one at a time, adding the next change to my routine after I'd become accustomed to the last change. The result was a much healthier way of living.
It turned out that losing weight, while difficult, was way easier than I had thought it would be in all my years of being super obese. I lost my first hundred pounds in about nine months. Things slowed down after that because some habits are hard to break, and when these plateaus happen, you have to change up your strategy. But thanks to the encouragement of my lady love and others in my life, I've been able to overcome and get back on track. Keeping momentum going is key, and I hope that as the blog goes on, I'll be able to continue to report progress regularly.
 |
| Once more, 2016 vs. 2018 |
And it's been worth it. Losing weight takes a lot of stress off the body, which improves energy, productivity, and, honestly, outlook. It makes shopping for clothes much easier and significantly less costly. It opens opportunities that might otherwise not be available. People respond completely differently. Sex is a thousand times better. And it becomes economically easier as food bills lessen and everyday items receive less wear and tear.
So welcome to my weight loss journey. I intend to post roughly twice a week. Some posts will be observations about weight loss and things I've learned. Some will be memoirs of my experiences. Some will be philosophical writings about obesity and health. And some will be links to resources I've found useful, recipes I use, or exercises I use to improve fitness. Almost every sentence in the paragraphs above will branch out into their own posts, and I intend to update this introduction with links to them as they're published. And if you're on your own journey, I'd love to hear about it.
-Jerry
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