Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute just sit for a bit
I'll tell you how I became a regular on a sub called r/loseit
(My apologies to Will Smith).
Today marks the second anniversary of my first entries into MFP: My first entries were on Feb 11, 2018. This post won’t be about my journey itself, but instead is the story of everything that led up to it and kickstarted my journey. I intend to follow up with another post later in the week more about the journey itself.
SmilingJaguar the Early Years
I was a normal skinny kid until the age of about 6-7 growing up in the suburbs near NYC. At that point my family moved halfway around the world, and I grew up in Switzerland until I finished high school. For most of primary and middle school, I was the chubby kid. Not quite fat, but definitely not skinny. I played soccer constantly, but not at a competitive level, just messing around with my friends. Most of the rest of my exercise was compulsory PE and walking to/from school which really wasn’t a lot. I didn’t enjoy exercise, except for the soccer.
I was also surrounded by mountains everywhere and enjoyed hiking up in the mountains, even though we would usually drive up the mountain we were planning to hike on, and hike only at the top. This was much less than I had been doing in the US, riding my bike around a suburban neighborhood and just generally spending all of my afternoons outdoors.
My parents and my older brother all weighed well over 100 kg for as long as I can remember. So my role models already had a poor relationship with food. Looking back on it, we would generally eat pretty healthy foods, but in portions that were sized for people bigger than we were. I do believe that some of this was driven by my father having grown up in the great depression in a place where food was somewhat scarce. So he was just trying to do what made him feel “safe”.
Both of my grandmothers were diabetics so this was always a topic of some concern, but we didn’t really do anything about it, just mention it.
Anyhow, puberty hit, a growth spurt followed, and I decided to take advantage of that to trim down a bit. The summer before my junior year I started to walk everywhere. Instead of taking the bus to the center of the town I would walk the 30-45 minutes and take in the sights. I also remember my mom making a bet with me about shooting hoops during this time and I think it was some number of baskets in 30 minutes would earn me some cold hard cash for a purchase I wanted to make. So I would spend entire afternoons out on the court shooting hoops. I remember weighing 77 kg in my senior year at high school and still having some fat on me, but being OK with how I looked.
Back to the US - Adulthood
I returned to the US for college. My brother had done his undergraduate work in France and was in graduate school in the US and he convinced me that for the fields I was interested in I would be better served by being back here.
I lived in a house on campus, and had a kitchen, but little experience cooking and also little cash so many of my meals this first year back were spaghetti from a box. Wonder bread/Kraft "cheese" sandwiches, ramen noodles, and breakfast cereal. Lots and lots of breakfast cereal. I still walked everywhere, but the distances were a lot shorter. I lost the habit of playing soccer even recreationally because it just wasn’t popular in the US until the World Cup in 1994. Sigh.
Even though I wasn’t of legal drinking age, there was beer flowing freely at the house and lots and lots of parties.
I gained some weight, but probably only the typical "Freshman 15 lbs."
My second year in college was worse. I moved to a traditional dorm, with a meal plan in the dorms. No kitchen. Food was essentially unlimited and so were calorie bomb drinks. Soda, OJ, milk and chocolate milk. My weakness was chocolate milk, I would have at least one glass per meal (or two or three) on top of OJ in the morning, and maybe soda with dinner.
I still spent a lot of my time off campus hanging out with some of the upperclassmen that I had lived with the year before and at the house where I had lived my Freshman year. And that’s how I met the mother of my children. She was living in the house a year after I had, but was also a year older than me.
She was from a completely different part of the world, yet we had very similar experiences and saw many things the same way. We would finish each other’s sentences and generally had a wonderful time. We officially started dating in February of 1986, and moved off campus together the following year. I regained a kitchen, but the damage had been done. I was now used to free flowing calorie dense food, and combined with domestic bliss and no longer being able to walk to campus so easily I really started to gain weight and quickly got out of Onederland and even Metric Onederland.
By the end of junior year in college, I was over 220 lbs and living happily with the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We sealed the deal in the spring of ‘89; we got married and moved on up to grad school together in the Boston area.
It was during grad school that I first hit a weight in the 270s. I remember being diagnosed with exercise induced asthma and weighing in at 273 lbs at that time. The stress of grad school life meant lots of takeaway meals and eating whatever we could find on campus.
I did get back to walking a lot, but I couldn’t outwalk my shitty diet.
Anyhow let’s fast forward a bit.
Y2K - Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
By the late 90s we had already been married for a decade, living together for over a dozen, we were both gainfully employed and living comfortably in California, but we both had 30-45 minute car commutes that could easily turn into 2 hours if the traffic was bad.
I had made several half hearted attempts to follow several diets and my average weight during this period was right around 250 lbs. Most of my weight loss efforts brought me to 230 quickly, but then were abandoned due to unsustainability and/or lack of time due to the rigors of my job.
I tried a couple of times in the 90s to lose weight working with nutritionists and my PCP to lose weight, and both times I was given a meal plan that I now describe as “low fat at all costs”. They tried so hard to eliminate all the fat in my diet so that nothing was palatable and I was constantly hungry and volume eating carbs and veggies. I would lose weight, but stabilize around 220-235 and then quit. My wife and I would share cooking duties and generally eat healthy food, but I would still eat more than her and would often have second and third servings negating the desired outcome of the nutritionists’ plan.
My brother died at 39 during these late 90s years. He had a brain aneurysm explode and because of his size (39M 6’4” ~270+ lbs) they were unable to get him to the hospital quickly. I believe the year after his death was probably the most successful of these diets, when I definitely got down to 225, and maybe even 220 for a brief while. Sadly that progress didn’t last.
We had decided to try having kids, now that we were in our 30s it was time to stop acting like 20 somethings. She got pregnant, we were ecstatic and then … she had a miscarriage just as the pregnancy was beginning to show. We were both devastated, but the heaviest weight of the loss was definitely on her.
We decided to take a year off trying for kids, and as part of the healing process from the miscarriage, we took a two week adventure trip to Peru.
Everything I have learned about solving hard problems I learned in Peru
The hardest part of this 14 day trip was a 4 day hike on the Inca Trail, up to Machu Picchu. Every day we would be hiking 6-7 hours up and down on the path with breaks for snacks and lunch and meeting up for dinner at the next campsite. Most of the other people on the trip were significantly younger than us and most definitely in better shape.
My “then” photo was from that trip, I was probably pushing 245 around then. My wife was also not particularly active, but she always maintained her weight around 140 lbs at 5’6” so normal BMI. The air was thin at the top of each pass and it was cold. We just knew we had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
We knew that our goal was Machu Picchu, but at any given instant that was completely irrelevant. We just knew we needed to get to the rock or tree or pass that we could see in the distance. As long as we could do that, we could be making progress.
We were the slowest of our group. We would arrive at the next checkpoint sometimes 20-30 minutes later than everyone else and they would be bored and ready to move on, but that didn’t matter to us. We just knew that we needed to keep going forward. Speed didn’t really matter.
We succeeded and on the fourth morning we arrived at the Gate of the Sun and watched the Sun rise over Machu Picchu.
I try to apply this approach to every seemingly insurmountable problem I have had to tackle since. Just keep inching forwards and you will ultimately get to your goal.
Kids, and the beginning of marital strife
Our two kids were born shortly after our trip to Peru and healing from the miscarriage. During this time I was first noticing symptoms of sleep apnea, particularly during allergy season, but they were unable to detect it initially because it took so long to book an appointment that when I went in for a sleep study I was sleeping OK and not showing symptoms. This was scary since I was spending hours in the car and having a hard time staying awake.
Anyhow, shortly after the birth of our second child, my wife asked me to move out of the marital bedroom for a while so she could improve her sleep. So, I was sleeping on a twin mattress in my toddler’s room. (r/deadbedrooms)
However, she also kicked me out of the kitchen. Up until then, we had collaborated and shared kitchen duties, often cooking meals together. Now I was "in her way" all the time and I just needed to stay away when food was being prepared.
We had moved closer to her work and I now had a 75-150 minute commute each way. If the traffic was bad, I would sometimes have to stop and get something at the fast food place just so I could use the bathroom. I was typically out of the house 7AM-7PM during those days with little time to be able to go to the gym either at home or at work. Plus eating the fries or the shake as a "snack" on the way home.
I finally got diagnosed with sleep apnea and went on CPAP a few years later, and she was no longer breastfeeding, so I was “allowed” back into the marital bedroom for a while. Even then, over time, my wife grew increasingly distant and went through cycles of kicking me out of the bedroom again. She was focused exclusively on the kids and wasn’t interested in spending any energy keeping our marriage or even herself from falling apart.
When our kids were about 4 and 6, we took a family trip to visit my parents internationally. Not an easy trip when you have a child with serious food allergies. Looking back on it, I believe that trip was the real turning point in our marriage. It had reached adulthood, as we had now been married for 18 years. Yet, even though we weren’t always perfectly happy together, we were still together; usually holding hands when walking anywhere together and still talking to each other about our wants and dreams. On this trip she accused my parents of not having the kids’ best interests in mind, and claimed I was taking their side against her. From then on, the good working relationship that she had had with my parents for 18 years completely crumbled and I was left in the middle trying to somehow broker peace between my spouse and my parents.
Things weren’t great between us for about a year and I seriously considered divorce, but couldn’t stand the thought of leaving my children. I suggested marriage counseling, she would have none of it. We eventually forged a new detente, agreed that we wanted to stay together, and moved together across the country so she could take her career to a new level.
All during this time my weight was pretty stable. I was fat, obese even, but I wore mostly the same clothes from 1999-2016. Size 42-44 jeans and XL/XXL 18/35 shirts.
Back to the East Coast
Quick fast forward here too. We moved back East in 2009. Spent several years going through up and down cycles in our relationship. I was unemployed for 9 months, she went through cycles of kicking me out of the marital bedroom again and so-on and so-forth. I wasn’t happy, she wasn’t happy, and we both ate our emotions in our own ways.
Our house was by a great bike/walking path and abutted some conservation land so I would often take walks on the path or in the woods to keep my activity up when I was unemployed and also when I was working remotely from the house. I would use what would have been my commute time to go for a walk and my weight would oscillate between 240-260 lbs. I also started coaching soccer and worked with both of my kids from 2012-2017 until they outgrew parent coaches and needed better trained coaches.
In 2014-2015, I lost both of my parents within a span of a little over a year, and suddenly my entire nuclear family was gone. I was crushed, but got little if any support from my spouse, due to the stressed relationship between them and she and I. That started a downward spiral for me mentally and emotionally and thus indirectly my weight suffered as well. I quickly gained weight from just below 250 back up to the 270+ that I had been at my peak in grad school.
Things really fall apart - Her fitness journey
Here comes the fall of 2016. I lost both of my parents over the past two years and now a major political tidal wave hits the US. My wife was deeply affected by the events and blamed everything on the nearest representative of the patriarchy, me. This launched her on a journey of her own. She started doing yoga, first as a stress reliever and then later started deliberately trying to lose weight; improving her performance at the gym. Ultimately she dropped from a peak weight around 165 lbs after the birth of kid #2 down to 120 lbs or lower. She was now smaller than when I had met her almost 3 decades before.
I was still kicked out of the kitchen, and she was starting to cook or buy different meals for herself than what she prepared for the kids and I to meet her fitness and weight loss goals. By this point also I had reached the worst shape of my own life. My size 44 jeans were getting tight and I had bought some in size 46 just because they were cheap. Those started to fit me a little too well. These would become part of my “potato sacks of shame” reference outfit.
With her renewed focus on herself and decreasing interactions with me I simply gave up fighting for our relationship. I told her that she needed to make a decision either way. Either she wants to be married to me and will have to invest some time in keeping our relationship alive, or she will have to invest time into dissolving our relationship. Doing nothing wasn’t going to be an option, but I would leave the decision up to her. Until she figured it out, I’d be in the guest bedroom.
Another year rolls by and we reach the end of 2017. The holidays are coming up and she announces that she intends to spend the holidays and her birthday in Sedona and visiting other parts of Arizona. I said great! Let’s go! She tells me she’s surprised that I want to come since I don’t usually like to travel at Christmas… I responded that it could be good for all of us to get away from our routine for a while, and there was no way in hell I would spend Christmas without my kids.
Another hike - different lessons
We arrive in Sedona and it’s immediately clear she’s not into using this trip to build any bridges with me. The AirBNB she reserved has enough bedrooms for her to have her own, and she makes it clear to all of us that that’s not where I am going to be.
We go on a hike. It’s insanely hot and sunny, it’s sandy and rocky. I’m over 270 lbs and she takes off quickly. My idea of a family or group hike is that it’s family/group first, hike second. We stay with the slowest member of the family and enjoy the views as we are going along. Stop and take in the sights. Her concept for this hike was to go as fast as she could and leave me behind possibly with one or both of the kids.
So my glasses start to fog up as they do when I’m hiking hard and sweating profusely. My oldest son keeps shuttling back and forth between his parents. Making sure I’m OK. My youngest mostly keeps up with mom, but I sometimes notice that he is also lagging behind her a bit.
Anyhow, I trip over a tree root covered in sand and and fall hard one inch from a sharp rock that would have smacked me right in the forehead. If my oldest wouldn’t have been coming back again to check on me I might not have been found until another hiker came along.
It was then and there that I realized that my future was in nobody else’s hands but mine. I needed to regain my footing as I had so long ago in Peru. Not trying to catch up with people that didn’t want to join me on my journey and walk alongside me, but forging my own path and taking it at my own pace.
This experience repeated a couple more times on the trip where I would make a suggestion that would keep the group together and was within my physical reach, she would override it and I would say fine I guess I’ll be doing my own thing over here and see you at the car. I have the keys.
It got so bad that at one stop to go view a bridge, I stayed and cried in the car because I was really afraid that I would consider jumping off of that bridge. I also avoided walking down the Grand Canyon, and stayed safely away from any edges.
My kids and I had a grand time together in AZ whenever my wife was doing something else: Going to bed early or going to a yoga class or to get a massage.
Anyhow. That’s what led me to reddit. I was aware of the site, as a coworker likes to frequent many of the science/tech subs. My youngest was perusing r/prequelmemes or something silly like that and I figured it could potentially help get my mind off of things. So I made an account and started poking around. What a way to spend New Year’s Eve 2017 - waiting for the ball to drop while browsing reddit and playing cards with my kids.
When we got back home, the winter was a mild one so I started walking long distances on the bike path behind the house. I also started looking for information about how to lose weight so that I could potentially get faster and run less risk of injury on hikes, because it’s an activity I really enjoy.
Two weeks later, as I was preparing to go for a business trip in the early morning she tells me she wants a divorce. Just shy of 32 years after our first “official” date. She tells me that she has been seeing a counselor because she thought she might be depressed. They concluded that no she wasn’t, she was just sad and needed to get out of our marriage.
And that’s when I really found r/loseit while unable to sleep on that business trip after my partner of 32 years had finally decided to dump me.
The road to recovery
The events of the previous 30 days or so had left me stunned. Walking around a bit like a zombie. I contacted both an attorney and sought psychological counseling. I never actually used the shrink though. I was able to work through my own issues with the help of good friends (both IRL and online through another community I had been part of for many many years).
I stayed in the marital home for about 5 more months before moving out, as we were working out our Separation Agreement with a mediator. I had a new place to live under contract in April, but didn’t move out until the end of the school year in June.
During those five months, I was not only living there, but it was also my workplace since I worked from home when I wasn’t at the office in California. I would wait for my wife to finish her breakfast with the kids, before seeing them off to school and preparing my own breakfast. Finally allowed back into the kitchen to prepare my own meals! I also bought an Instant Pot (r/instantpot) and started to learn how to use it for my lunches. I still had dinner with my wife and the boys since that was “how was your day?” conversation time with the kids.
It was during this time that all of the vitriol she had been holding inside for so long finally came out, about how disgusting she found me and so on. I took a pledge at that point that one of the rules of my journey was to not let it turn me into an asshole. “Don’t let the journey change who you are at your core.” It also led me down a path of self-reflection of trying to define myself as a separate entity, whereas for so long I had been part of a set, and had placed many of my own interests on the back burner in a desperate attempt to avoid conflict.
Very early on in my browsing here at r/loseit I read a post from someone who said “Eat like the thinner person you want to be.” That became rule #2 of “Zombieland” with a slight modification inspired by rule #1. “Eat like the thinner version of you that you want to be.” Rules #3 and #4 were the ones learned on the hike to Machu Picchu.
I now had the beginnings of a framework to start planning out my journey.
The Rules
- Don’t let the journey change who you are at your core
- Eat like the thinner version of you that you want to be
- Go at your own pace, the destination will still be there no matter how fast you make progress towards it.
- The destination may be far away, but you can measure your progress by looking for a much closer landmark
The Journey Begins
In the next part of the story (which I intend to post later in the week) I’ll summarize the last two years of my actual journey and many of the little things that have helped me along the way.
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