It happened this afternoon.
My sister's inscrutable eyes tracked across the beer gut I've been cultivating over the last decade. I mostly ignored it. I've been getting glances like that since I first gained my Freshman 15. Which was followed in short order by the Sophomore 5, the Junior 10, and the Senior 7.5. After that, the Unemployed Graduate 12, the Desk Job 20, and so on. I'm not happy with where I've gotten to. I try not to judge other people on their weight, but I definitely judge myself. I try to ignore those glances, but there's always that pinprick of shame deep down that I let it get this far. That I feel like an unattractive blob when I look in the mirror.
Not that that ever put much of a damper on my love life. I've always managed to find partners of whatever gender who were attracted to me. Who didn't see my belly or flabby, untoned chest as any kind of liability. But I've always had a hard time believing them when they told me, with their words or otherwise, that they thought I was sexy. How can I believe my partner if I don't like what I see when I look in the mirror?
My sister's eyes flicked back up to my face, her mouth twisted in confusion. "Wait," she said. "Have you lost weight?"
"Nope." A smile touched the corners of my mouth. "Not a pound."
***
This isn't my first attempt at weight loss. The first time was 10 years ago, not long after I finally accepted that I'm not entirely heterosexual. I was 23, I wanted to get out there and explore, throw off the inhibitions I'd internalized growing up, and I wanted to look sexy doing it. Guys can be a little shallow, so if I wanted to have fun with other guys, I was going to need to get rid of the bulge that I'd been growing around my midsection. So I started counting calories. I kept them real low. I didn't really exercise. The gym still held all its old terrors for me. My knees had been dodgy since high school, so running wasn't a great option. So I just ate less. I was hungry much of the time, and sometimes felt a little weak, but I recontextualized it. Hunger was victory. Hunger was the feeling of fat being burned off my body. Hunger was good.
But I didn't really go into it with a plan other than "starve myself." If I felt down or depressed, or felt bad about myself, I still had that old habit of buying a bunch of chicken tenders or a big, juicy hamburger, and following it up with an large portion of fries. Not to mention that I'd finally learned just how delicious beer can be, and how three or four rums and coke could banish, if just for an evening, all the bad thoughts I had about myself. And I'll be damned if I didn't have some self-loathing--about my sexuality, and wondering how I'd ever break the news to my parents. How I'd squandered my time in college and now didn't have anything to show for it but a piece of paper that wasn't unlocking any doors into a career track position. And the Impostor Syndrome that had plagued me since high school was still weighing me down--I somehow convinced myself that there was no job I could ever do well at, that I might have been good at crushing finals with minimal studying, but there was no way my skills would translate into something worth actual money.
So while I did lose weight--I ended up dropping about 10 pounds--it wasn't sustainable. I couldn't starve myself forever, and I didn't have any contingencies in place when the inevitable binge-eating and binge-drinking started catching up with me.
I learned a couple of things from that first attempt, though.
What I learned from my mistakes: Failing to plan is planning to fail.
What I did right: CICO is 100% the right approach to losing weight. It involves unpleasantness, and recontextualizing pain and discomfort as a temporary victory will help keep that motivation high, at least for a while.
***
My second serious attempt at weight loss was just last year. The initial sign something was wrong was going to the urgent care clinic to get a blob of wax blasted out of my ear canal. The nurse weighed me before I went back to get checked out. The scale said 212. It took me months to gather up the courage to see what that meant on a BMI scale. Obese. Shit.
So I made a plan this time. Cardio. Calorie counting. I bought a Fitbit and started walking on my lunch break. Cheat days. I drilled CICO into my head. I researched effective fat burning techniques on the internet. Going to the gym was still somewhat terrifying, but fortunately, I'm a huge nerd. I have a VR headset, so I found some games that amp up the activity level. I spent an hour or more a day making playing rhythm and boxing games. I found examples of other people who had done the same--used VR to lose weight--and used them as inspiration and encouragement that this route could succeed. Running was still a no go--my knees were worse than ever--so I went for 3-4 mile walks at the local park on the weekends. I even walked there and back.
It worked. Weight started dropping off, week by week. Within 4 months, I was below 190. I celebrated when I finally saw the BMI marker drop from "Obese" to "Overweight." But even though I was counting calories, I was still eating out a lot. And the time required was intense. An hour+ every weekday for exercise, not including taking a shower afterward. And more than an hour every day on weekends. I had a lot of other stressors in my life--work stress, relationship stress. And I wasn't able to work on any other goals in the meantime.
I couldn't let the rest of my life sit on hold for a year until I got to my ideal weight, so the cardio eventually dropped off. And with all the stress I was dealing with, I couldn't resist self-medicating with food and drink. The siren song of beer and hot wings proved irresistible.
Over the course of 4-5 months, I ended up gaining back most of what I'd lost.
My mistakes: Sustainability is key. And what is sustainable for me, at a particular point in life, is not necessarily sustainable for others. Making changes requires overcoming fear, and you can't let any of them stand in your way--especially fear of the gym.
What I did right: CICO is still correct. Making a plan.
***
My third attempt has had a slow start. It's part of a total reboot in many aspects of my life. I'm applying a few new approaches to organizing my day at my (very stressful) day job. My partner has been dealing with very substantial mental health issues, and I ended up having to ask them to move out--I needed space to rebuild good habits and work on my own mental health. It nearly ended the relationship. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I got a therapist and started dealing with with old bad habits that were important to protect me when I was living in the closet with conservative parents, but don't serve me well anymore.
And I bought a gym membership.
I mentioned fear of the gym previously. I know a lot of people have a fear of the gym, but it went bone deep in my case. The people who go to the gym are, statistically speaking, hotter than the average person. I was pretty socially awkward when I was younger, so hot girls were kind of terrifying. But I knew what those feelings meant, and what they were for. But hot guys--until I came out to myself as bisexual, as not nearly as straight as I wished I was, I had no idea what to do with those feelings. I fled from anything that threatened to wake them up, even tangentially--usually to the library, where I could feel comfortable in the company of other out-of-shape misfits. That fear of the gym lingered long after I'd mastered the source of that discomfort.
I mentioned that I got a therapist? Even so, my heart was racing when I pulled into the gym parking lot to set up a membership. But I did it anyway. I faced it.
I found a simple exercise program online--no cardio, just weightlifting. Just the barbell. Squats, bench presses, military presses, deadlifts, and rows. Start with the empty bar, and add 5 pounds each exercise. 3 days a week, 45 minutes tops. That's it. If I wasn't capable of doing that, I wouldn't be capable of holding down a job. For the last 5 weeks, I've followed it.
I immediately found that lifting weights meant I had to take a completely different attitude toward food. Food is fuel. Food is nutrition. Food isn't there to fix a bad day. I've stopped eating out. I'm cooking nearly every meal, when I used to either eat out or buy something frozen that I could microwave.
I can lie to other people about how much I'm dedicated to making changes in my life. I can lie to myself. But I can't lie to the barbell. I can't lie to gravity. Either I can pick up the weight and move it, or I can't. The barbell is bullshit-proof. Just like the scale.
The weight on the scale hasn't changed. I weigh today what I weighed two months ago--203 pounds, plus or minus a couple (usually plus). But my knees are stronger. I don't worry that I'm going strain them too much when I have to carry several bags of groceries up the stairs to my apartment anymore. My parents are slowly packing up 25 years of stuff to move to a new house soon, and I spent last weekend slinging boxes of books like they were filled with packing peanuts.
In just the last month, I haven't budged an inch on the scale, but I've clearly burned some of that fat to get the energy I need to gain muscle.
And all of a sudden, my shirts are fitting better. I'm getting IBS flareups far less often. I'm drinking less. I'm eating more vegetables and lean protein. Because I can't lie to the barbell.
And this is sustainable. 3 nights at the gym is easy. I can organize my schedule around it without a problem.
What I've learned overall:
- Mental health and physical health are interrelated. I couldn't take on my physical health without addressing mental health challenges as well. Internalized shame, impostor syndrome, poor self-esteem, depression--it all felt better in the short term when I ate something delicious or got myself a bit sloshed on tasty beers or craft liquors, but that was temporary. Improving mental health means improving your physical health, and vice versa. It can be a virtuous circle. That's a tool.
- "Sustainable" means "changing your relationship with food." I'd heard "treat your food like fuel" before, but I didn't know what it meant. Putting myself underneath a barbell and pushing heavy weight is teaching me exactly what that means.
- If you don't believe that you're worth it, prove it to yourself that you are by treating yourself right. You'd be upset with a friend if they let their health decline because they didn't feel good about themselves, right? So don't treat yourself that way.
- Face your fears head on. That includes fear of success.
- Failing to plan means planning to fail.
- Focus on losing fat, not losing weight. Building muscle fuels fat burning.
- Calories in, calories out. It works.
- Don't underestimate the transformative power of picking up heavy things and putting them down again.
***
I told my sister I'd been going to the gym. That I'd been trying to build muscle, not just lose fat.
"Ugh." My sister side-eyed my shrinking gut. Envy tinged her voice. "I need to lose weight."
Envy wasn't exactly what I was going for. I'd rather hear "Good for you!" or "Congratulations!" I'd rather be encouraging each other to do better.
But being envied isn't exactly the worst thing in the world. I'll take it.
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