My Decision to Lose Weight
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I. Hubris
Throughout my life, there have been times when I’ve looked at my body and I couldn’t recognize the person in the reflection. I didn’t realize how some of my body’s changes occurred. I could only see the person in the mirror and not associate that image with the mental projection of myself.
As I age and get older and older and struggle to come to terms with my own mortality, I’ve realized that my body will continue to change like a thin patina of dust, flecks of change that build upon one another in the humdrum of daily existence, a growing pile of debris on the window sill. The dust will go unnoticed, until one day I’ve found myself transformed into a completely different person.
One day you wake up. You wake up like Gregor Samsa from Kafka’s Metamorphosis — an entirely different creature — and you question how you got there. But deep down you already know the answer — you’re the one who put yourself in that situation.
That being said, however, I do recognize there are larger institutions and moneyed interests and cultural traditions at play that do promote unhealthy lifestyles and diets — especially so in the United States where I reside. So, I will bracket the sole individual responsibility of weight loss without diminishing my own agency to change my situation. And I’ll say this: There are parameters you can and cannot control. As much as you can believe that you’re the captain of your own ship, life happens, and a hurricane can come out of nowhere even if you left the port reveling in clear blue skies. For example, like so many of those who went through the pandemic, anxious and stressed and unable to live in normalcy let alone thrive, I, too, neglected my weight, my health, my happiness.
The pandemic exacerbated my underlying depression, a malaise that mars every millennial I know. And, before I knew it, without consciously and intentionally paying attention to my body, I ballooned. I put on fifty pounds.
Sometimes, I shake my head at the audacity of the mindset I had when I was younger, from my teenage years to my early twenties. I can only chuckle at my hubris. I believed I wouldn’t “let myself go.” I had a self-mythology of sorts. A belief in being someone who wouldn’t become apathetic when it came to my health. That I would always give a damn. My reasoning went that because I had been somewhat athletic, I would always be athletic. Things would stay the same. And while I wasn’t the fastest runner on the track and field team, nor the strongest swimmer on the swim team, I had always been involved in some sport. I would be athletic. Even if I was always in the middle of the pack, I’d continue to keep a thinner physique. Even when, in college, I would join the triathlon team and compete in several Olympic distance triathlons, I would stay the same.
So what went wrong?
II. Metamorphosis
In the years following, and especially during the timeframe of 2020 until 2022, my weight, and my corresponding self-image of myself, oscillated. It was a pendulum of highs and lows that negatively affected my relationship to the food I ate, my body, and to my partner.
In hindsight, I recognize how privileged I was throughout 2020 and the initial phases of lockdown here in the United States: I had the benefit of a job that allowed me to work from home, and I had the resources to order through food delivery services multiple times a day while I endangered others to retrieve it for me. (That is one of my biggest regrets — all of the deliveries I ordered — now that I have a clear vision of hindsight.) All the while, I had no regard for how many calories I was eating. Even if I was a vegan at the time, and I still am vegan, I was proof that you could gain weight by eating purely junk food.
But now I still get choked up thinking about the person I had become. In June of 2021, after I had weighed myself and saw my weight had gotten to 180 pounds — that I had gained 30 pounds in the span of a year — I started to think to myself, “what’s the point?”. A certain desperation overcame me. An apathetic stance.
Ennui? Indifference? Mediocrity?
Had I succumbed and accepted my fate to become just another fat American? Was I destined to become the type of person who I had unconsciously always held disdain for? Was I fat phobic? In a sense, yes, yes to all those questions.
And so, to numb me from my thoughts, morning, day, and night I continued to gorge on vegan junk food, play video games, and binge-watch anime. I consumed. And I consumed. And I consumed. I stayed up until 2 a.m. each night and got up around 6 a.m., all to maximize the time I could play video games and escape the life that I had created for myself. Something deep within me grew. A sinister force controlling all of my behaviors. My identity wasn’t starting to change: it had already changed. And I had justified myself by calling myself a “hardcore gamer.”
At the end of November 2021, right before a small Thanksgiving trip with my partner, I stepped on the scale and became almost appalled at how much I had gained. Twenty pounds. In just a few months, I had shot up to 200 pounds. It was in that moment that it hit me: I couldn’t continue down the path I was going on anymore or my health would continue to take a toll for the worse. I took a photo of myself to keep as a reminder. I wanted it to be an albatross on my neck.
And while I’m thankful for the remaining portion of myself that hadn’t given up to keep myself happy, to not succumb to that deeper instinct, it wouldn’t be until the beginning of January that I would begin to change myself and start a new metamorphosis. An intentional metamorphosis.
I made a promise to myself that future me would take responsibility. I told myself just another month or so and I would quit video games. Why the delay?
A new expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, the MMORPG I was playing and had been addicted to for the last six years, was to be released in December. Plus, I had already taken time off work to “no-life” it, as my friends and I and the gaming community as a whole referred to it. And so I continued to procrastinate my self-improvement. For five days straight, at the launch of this video game expansion, I truly tested the phrase “no-lifing”: I pulled all-nighters, drank too much caffeine from energy drinks, and snacked on way too vegan chips. But all for what? To be one of the first players to reach the new level cap? To flex on strangers on the internet?
Several weeks passed. I had gained five pounds and had a growing sense of dread. For Christmas, I had also planned a trip to visit my family. So why was I anxious? I should have been excited, for I hadn’t seen my mother since before the beginning of the lockdown as she lives on the east coast of the United States. And I hadn’t seen my extended family in over five years since my wedding.
Sadness, shame, and guilt welled up within me. I should have been happy, but I wasn’t. I had seen the way my family had gossiped about other people’s body weight. And, while they have the decency to not say anything to peoples’ faces, I knew that they would be delighted with a meaty morsel of gossip: how I had gained so much weight that they couldn’t recognize me anymore.
And so, up until my trip, I continued to no-life. I hid away in my apartment playing my video game and continuing my unhealthy eating habits. I tried to eat away my shame but to no avail. I tried to escape into a virtual world so as to not be met with judgment but to no avail. I didn’t want to become the Other. But I knew that my family would make me one. I knew that I had already made myself one. That I had self-sabotaged.
III. Vulnerability
When I arrived at my cousin’s house for our Christmas celebration, everyone uttered phrases about how great I looked. Whether or not they meant, their words didn’t matter. I was in that mindset where no matter what anyone says to you, even the ones who you love, even your partner, it all boils down to how you yourself think about yourself. The mindset where no one can change your mind as to how you feel about your body image.
Inevitably, the conversations I had with my extended family didn’t go deeper. And that’s okay. I’m not sure if it’s the case with your family and extended family, but at least for me, there are only certain topics you can circle around without going deeper. In short, a superficial layer that you can’t go deeper into and arrive at a more vulnerable space. A space where others can talk about their vulnerability.
I’ve come to realize over the years that people are in different seasons of their lives. People mature faster or slower or not at all. You have to meet others where they are at, and you can only hope that others meet you where you are on your journey.
And so, naturally, the conversations revolve around the topics you can easily tiptoe around. In short, superficial ones. Like my weight gain. And, to my surprise, my cousin’s weight loss.
To my insecure self, I welcomed the chance to talk about how my cousin and her boyfriend had become Peloton fanatics during the lockdown. I welcomed leaving the family room to escape from the gaze of my extended family and take a tour of my cousin’s Peloton room where she and her boyfriend each have their own.
During the reprieve, away from everyone else, my cousin and began to peel back our masks and have a vulnerable conversation.
My cousin spoke about how she had her own weight loss transformation by using the bike almost daily. I could see the glimmer in her eye as she spoke about how many days in a row she had ridden. I understood the significance of the Peloton hoodie she wore and what it meant to her.
In short, it was at that moment that I had an epiphany: the goals we want for ourselves can become achievable if we change our identity around being a certain way. I went to bed that night thinking about how if my cousin became a “Peloton person,” what kind of person should I strive to be? What new identity could I create?
IV. Identity
In order to lose the weight, and not make it simply a new year’s resolution, I’ve gone 100% into changing my lifestyle. I’ve constructed a new identity as a cyclist. As an athlete. And, just like a high-performing athlete might changes his or her diet, I too, have begun to edit my diet, remove alcohol, and resolve myself to one cheat meal a week — a stark contrast to the daily Grubhub binges.
And over the last several months, I slowly have cold-turkey built up a renewed identity. I truly believe that in order to make a drastic change to your lifestyle, you have to own that new identity, whatever it is.
And while this might sound too good to be true, or too easy, I would 100% agree with you.
Like revolutions in society, changes on the personal level — a fundamental change — a transformational change — a change like changing your whole identity, for example — this type of change has to be necessitated. What that means is that the change has to be urgent. You have to live through something that puts you in a life or death scenario. And this doesn’t necessarily mean l life or death on a physical level. It can also mean something intangible like your identity. But only then are you able to make that change through some radical decision.
You have to decide to change. And like the etymology of “decide” entails — literally translating to “cut off” — you have to cut off the old tethers of your identity, your old life, your old situation, and begin anew.
So if you’re looking to make a change in your life, whether it is to try and lose weight or give up an addiction like video games, I’m a firm believer in creating the identity you would like to become. Visualize who that person is and what they look like. And then start living as that person would, taking on their identity. And at first, it will feel like imposter syndrome. But recognize that you do feel uncomfortable — that space outside of your comfort zone is where you want to be. It has a certain energy, a palpable feeling almost as if anything is possible if you just decide.
We all need to hit rock bottom and climb our way up and make our own decisions. For me, I didn’t decide to become a Peloton person, but I still am, in a sense, climbing on my bike. I only hope you can find your own path, your own decision, too.
