For the second morning in a row, I got a result south of 300lbs when I weighed myself, meaning I've achieved one of my bigger weight based goals. It feels really good, and even if some of the weight loss is due to post humidity/heat wave water loss, its still lost weight. I'm also seeing that I'll have a very good August: I've already lost 15lbs with a week left to go. After losing 15 in July, I was hoping that I could get the 20lbs a month back on track, and it looks like I might be able to get close to that.
There are times when I realize that I'm celebrating being at a weight that most people would be horrified to find themselves at, but there's no value in thinking like that. That I was once 432lbs is a fact, it's done, and I need to celebrate the progress I've made, and not rue how far I have left to go.
I'd commented in an earlier post about how weight loss might be a categorical imperative in the US, with most people either attempting it or thinking about it. Talking to people, I find them genuinely impressed when I tell them what I've lost. While waiting for my wings at the Linden Tavern (my treat for cracking 300), I stopped into the men's clothier next door. The salesman was in his 50's and wasn't wild about helping me at first, but I told him that I'd lost 130lbs and was still losing, he warmed right up. I'm still a ways out from their biggest stuff, but he figured at most another twenty, thirty pounds. After realizing he wasn't going to sell me anything, we still chatted a while about weight loss and diet.
I'm not prone to false (or really any) modesty, yet I still feel odd in taking credit for this weight loss. The program fits me like a glove, I've had ample financial and emotional support from my family, I had tons of time this year to cook properly and not be tempted at work, and I knew that by losing weight I could count on a steady stream of money from back home. I approached it like a job, knowing that if I didn't do it, I'd be broke soon. I'm plenty happy to reap the accolades, I guess, but I still wish more people understood that I'm not some master of human willpower or something. Mostly, I'm a guy that's scared of surgery and/or moving into my parent's basement.
Now that the 300lb barrier has been shattered, Chuck Yeager style, it is time to ponder the next handful of milestones. Next up is 287lbs, at which I will no longer be "morbidly" obese, instead I'll merely be "severely" obese. By a twist of fate, that is also the point at which I'll have lost fully one third of my start weight. Looking ahead further than that is 260lbs, which is a highly personal goal in that it's 100lbs above my "ideal" weight for my height (5'11"), thus totally eliminating me as a candidate for weight loss surgery. Beyond that, 250lbs is of course my goal weight for all of this, and at some point in there I should be able to start fitting into the biggest clothes offered at mainstream stores. I'm broke so I can't buy any, but at least I'll have the option!
All in all, I'm once again happy with the diet. July was rough, for a variety of reasons, and while I kept the faith it's rewarding to see results.
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Well done! That is a big accomplishment, no matter how little credit you wish to take for it. :) Fitting into clothes you can buy at regular stores (for me particularly, Old Navy) is an accomplishment that regular sized people don't generally understand, especially when you really can only shop at a few stores since there's no point in going to regular stores who are unlikely to have anything you can wear.
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