Mr. Ganey,
This is a rather long, over-dramatic note of thanks. I'm not quite
sure why I wanted to tell you all this, but perhaps it's because I've
never told anyone else. My story is not particularly original, or very
tragic, but you have made it better. Thank you.
To say I’ve struggled with my weight all my life would be a downright lie. Oh, I’ve cried over my weight. I’ve complained about it. I’ve thrown hissy fits in fitting rooms and rationalized everything and convinced myself that one more dress
size isn’t so bad. I’ve done the fad diets and the dietary pills and
the starve-to-binge. For the past eight years, I’ve worn an oversized
sweatshirt over nearly everything I’ve ever worn, even in the
summer, because I believed that it would hide the excess fat.
Note to self: I can’t hide all that fat. No matter how big your hoodie is.
I don’t eat healthy, that’s a fact. I’ve been eating chocolate
chip cookies for breakfast and my mom’s gourmet phone call for Chinese
take-out is my favorite family dinner. The neighborhood pizza man knows
us by name. I cringe at the thought of whole wheat and I have been known to say, "Damn it, I’m American. Make it super sized."
So when I say it’s my own damn fault that I’m overweight, well,
it’s the God’s honest truth. I’ve ignored too many doctors’ warnings
and reached around too many water bottles for Pepsi cans to pass the
blame off on somebody else. And the old mantra that "admitting it is the
first step" is, in my case, very false. I admitted it a long time ago.
And I’ve done nothing about it.
And to be honest, I’m lazy. I was a hell of a slugger in
softball but I never ran laps. I was a damn fine tap dancer, too, but I
never worked out. I am a voracious reader, so I’d pass the day on the
couch and get up only for trips to the refrigerator. I’d even read
weight loss books—countless books about changing my lifestyle and
improving my diet and getting mobile—but I’d finish a chapter and
celebrate with a candy bar. It really is amazing that I haven’t hit the
300lb mark yet. I guess all those times I cursed my out-of-shape body, I
never realized how hard it fought for me to stay healthy, even when I’d
stacked the odds against it.
But then my first real sense of weight loss came my senior year
in college. I was living on my own and having the time of my life, and
the icing on the proverbial cake (and the literal cake, actually) was
watching the pounds melt away. It was so fast. I went from wearing size
twenty-two jeans and my signature oversized sweatshirt out to the clubs,
to hardly recognizing myself. It was an amazing feeling.
The problem, of course, was that I did not do it right. Actually, I don’t think anybody could have done it less
right. College was a time of personal growth for me, a time to learn
about the world and about myself, but it was also when I fell into a
cycle of binge drinking, hard partying, and experimenting with drugs. If
I had five dollars in my pocket, I bought a pack of cigarettes and had
no money left for dinner. If I had twenty dollars, I’d buy a bump, a six
pack, and a large pizza. I didn’t say no to any substance or any party.
I stayed up all night and threw up often, and I thought it was all okay
because I was having fun and losing so much of that damn weight.
It was also during that time that I found my "Easy Button"—the
prescription A.D.D medicine Adderall. We started calling it the Wonder
Drug. It was just a tiny little pill that we could get for five bucks
from the stoner up the street, who’d conned a prescription out of his
doctor. None of us actually had A.D.D. And this Wonder Drug, it
could keep you up all night to finish a term paper, it could get you
through Finals Week feeling like you were on top of the world. It could
keep us drinking until dawn, and we loved it. Adderall is, essentially,
an amphetamine. Speed. When abused, it can be quite dangerous and very
addicting. But it kicked up my heart rate and it made me lose weight
faster than anything in the world. I dropped six pants sizes and I
passed all my exams and I never missed a party.
A real Wonder Drug.
I am ashamed to admit it, but if I hadn’t graduated college at
the end of that year, May of 2011, I’d either be dead right now, or
still living that way, abusing drugs and losing weight. A part of me
wishes I’d never given it up, because popping pills and snorting powders
is a lot easier than exercising and eating right. But, eventually, I
did go through the stages of breaking the drug addiction. Or, maybe, it
was a lifestyle addiction. In the absense of drugs and drinking and
college life, I filled the void with food. Lots of it.
So then, after all the bad decisions I’d made, after
all the horrible things I’d put my body through, it was the diet pills
that put me in the hospital.
Okay, I can’t prove it was the dietary pills that did
it, but sometimes you just know what’s wrong with you. Sometimes, you
can just feel your body saying, "This is the last straw!" before your
mother has to drive you to the emergency room at three am because you
think it might be really serious this time. All those flashy
packages at the drugstore advertise quick weight loss, guaranteed
results, et cetera, et cetera. None of them tell you the truth:
It’s all a load of crap. And it’s trying to kill you.
After college, I suffered alone because I wouldn’t tell my
family what I’d done, because my college friends were gone and I had a
real life to begin. And with that came depression. I realized that I may
have overcome some of my addictions, but there was one that I clung to:
food. And because I was sad, I stayed inside and didn't move around or
get active. It has been only a year, but I’ve gained back all of the weight my Wonder Drug took off, and added a lot more.
I’m heavier than I ever was. And now, I’m jaded, too, because all I can
think about is how quickly I’d lost weight when I did it the unhealthy
way, how good I looked then. I started thinking that maybe this is a
losing battle, maybe there is no way for me to lose weight and live to
tell about it.
That’s where you come in. I found your blog one day when I was
sitting on the couch, eating a bag of potato chips and looking for anybody
on the internet to vindicate my new outlook on weight loss. Clearly,
your blog did not stand up and tell me that it was okay to be unhealthy,
to lose pounds but gain other problems. In fact, it was your blog above
all others that told me most plainly that I was, to be blunt, an idiot.
Or maybe it was just the pants-flag thing. That one really got me.
Now, remember, I’m still lazy. I started reading your blog
on-and-off a few months ago, and I’ve still had chocolate chip cookies
for breakfast since then. You inspired me, truly, like nothing else ever
had, but it was motivation I needed, and that could only come
from myself. Today, I’m not writing to you to say I’ve lost so much
weight because of your blog, but I am writing to say thank you for
something much more important: changing my attitude.
I know it’s very cliché. Attitude is everything, yada yada
yada, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I think you gave me a turning
point when I read some of your blog posts and realized that losing
weight is a lifestyle change. And I’ve done lifestyle change before.
Successfully. Healthily. Your blog showed me that that’s the same kind
of energy and focus and dedication I need to direct toward my weight
loss, too.
In one of your recent posts, you compared the first steps of
detoxing/lifestyle change to a kind of methadone. Rehabilitation from
the way I’ve been eating and loafing around my whole life. That, I
think, is exactly how I need to look at it. Sometimes I want a Big Mac
more than I’ve ever craved a drug, but I feel better without it, just
like I feel better without the side effects from the narcotics. I took
my life back from the hard-partying lifestyle, and I can take my life
back from obesity. And it was your words that put that together in my
head for me.
It's so much nicer to be looking forward to a beginning than it
is to be dreading an end. So here I am, getting started. I’ve started a
million times, but this time, I understand myself better, I get it.
Thanks for the kick in the ass. Thanks for the honesty. I’m
twenty-three years old and I’m starting a real life, but I’m also going
to start a healthy one, thanks to you. I know it’s going to be
difficult—and I appreciate you for not beating around that fact—but I
want a pants-flag of my own, one I’ve earned with hard work and
discipline. Thanks for showing me that I can do it.
Best wishes in all your endeavors,
Me
