Oh, alright. Not entirely that dramatic. I did miss the feeling if regular improvement I experienced this past winter. But old habits die hard. I work in an environment built on long hours and eating at one’s desk. Neither of which are a good idea for a person given to distraction and poor food choices. Like my cousin. He’d have a terrible time with that.

I brought a bag of baby spinach, a can of salmon, and a can opener to work this morning. I’d replaced biting my nails with drinking coffee and the gloom of impending deadlines made lunch a forgotten notion as I inhaled the acidic shards of stale coffee breath. What a wretched scent. I was once kissed by a person who had drunk coffee, beer and smoked a cigarette after having fasted for a few days. That was worse than what I experienced today.

By 6pm I was hungry. What to do? Oh! Salmon and spinach, of course. The entire bag of spinach was 60 calories. The can of salmon was a little over 550. Yet if you were to walk by, you’d likely mutter about how I must be some sort of scarfing pig to eat so much food.

Precisely. That is not the sort of food that makes a person fat. I ate it all and was a bit bored of eating by the time I’d nearly finished. In plainest terms, I wasn’t hungry anymore. I’m a smart guy. I’ve known for months that I can eat as much spinach and salmon as I want and lose weight yet I’d not been doing it. Maybe I’m just book smart or there’s some deeper need to make culinary excuses for myself.

There was a watermelon waiting for me in the fridge when I arrived home this evening. Its presence was  no surprise. I put it there last evening after a half-mile walk through a hot fog of Massachusetts evening. The coolness was stunning as the melon unzipped beneath a sharp blade.

Once again, I ate as much as I wished. You won’t get fat off watermelon.

It’s nice to not be waiting any longer. You come, too.

By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. It’s something I’ve needed to do for quite some time but didn’t have the heart to talk to you about. I knew you wouldn’t understand. You’d say this is just another of my fascinations and that I’d never actually leave you.

But I have. I’ve left you Priscilla. Ours was not the type of relationship that would have made me into a better person. I was a bigger person for it, sure. But I wasn’t better. You were slowly killing me. Just you.

No, it doesn’t matter that you were one of many. This is about you and me. Not them. Not yet. Their time is coming. I won’t be sucked into yet another sedated goose chase of excuses and limp arguments. I’m not trying to be lazy this time. I’m not trying to suffocate my problems with a soft pillow of food and inactivity.

I don’t have to wonder when good things will start happening to me because I have become one of the good things happening in my life.

When I started writing these letters, I smiled at the idea of using vicious words to describe a painful breakup between longtime partners. I don’t feel that way about you, Priscilla. I’m not angry. I’m not resentful. I had some amazing things happen to me while we were together. I made some great friends, saw interesting things, ate delicious food, and even helped improve some people’s lives.

Now, as I say goodbye to you and think of all the others I already owe letters to, I’m so grateful. I’m grateful for the people around me who loved me as I was and support me in my change. I’m delighted at the progress I’ve made in spite of all the bouts of laziness and inconsistent focus. And I’m so glad for all the opportunities I’ve had to connect with others who pull some bit of inspiration from my stumbles.

Life is good. It’s even better now that I don’t have you, Priscilla.

Dear Monique,

I had myself convinced that we were good together. I took a doctor’s comment that I was “healthy but for the extra weight” and focused on the healthy part. I didn’t feel bad with you but how was I to know any better. We’d been together fo so long! I couldn’t remember what life was like without you.

Even when I began leaving the others it seemed unlikely that you and I would ever part. We hadn’t looked at each other let alone spoken in years. Given my history, you had no reason to worry. I’d never get around to you.

Obviously, I did.

I took you for a final run along the beach. I’m not very fast yet. I don’t stop though and that’s where I keep digging up wins. The new street lights have yet to be completed. My footsteps fell on dark pavement as we moved through the cold air.

I look at the lights across the water. I breathe. I listen to the words of a song for a few stanzas. I breathe. It’s so cold out. I curl my fingers into fists and squeeze my thumbs to warm them. I breathe. It takes so long for me to warm up, I think. I don’t seem to be able to lengthen my stride until nearly two miles in. I breathe deeply. Keep running. Keep breathing. Don’t stop.

I didn’t notice the moment you left.

I was busy breathing.

Michael,

Social pressures can do a lot to help or harm one’s sense of self and subsequent health choices. You were one of the harms.

You were the “friend” who insisted that I wasn’t fat as I continued to gain weight far past any glimmer of possible health. You were the “buddy” who encouraged me to eat more even when I’d said I was trying to cut back. You were the dude who told me that anybody who wasn’t physically attracted to me just as I was didn’t deserve the time of day.

I suppose you were just trying to help. Were you? It wasn’t helpful.

I needed somebody to be concerned about me. It wasn’t like I had an allergic reaction and blew up overnight. It was a process. You saw it happening. When I tried to make changes, you made no effort to help. I didn’t expect you to help but I’d hoped you wouldn’t stand in the way. But you did.

It was my fault that I gained weight. I know that, Mike. It was my fault that I didn’t do a better job of self-regulation and make a difference earlier. I know that.

Still, I ask you. As my friend, why didn’t you say anything? If I’d been snorting coke or shooting heroin you would have done something. I know you would have. But I wasn’t on illegal substances. I was on a Baptist-approved carbohydrate coma that, in some ways, made my life seem easier. You saw what I was doing and yet there was not a word from you!

It’s okay. I figured things out on my own. I shoveled out the embarrassment and uncertainty on my own. I walked alone. Then I started to jog along. I kept going and I was finally able to run. Still alone.

It’s been a few weeks since I knew for sure that you were gone. It’s been a few weeks since I let my real friends know that I was doing okay without you. I’m sorry to get this letter off with such tardiness but it’s not as if you’d care.

You’re just a blob of fat that slowly melted away without leaving any trace beyond my increased desire to put as many lost pounds between you and me as possible. You’re just a memory from a time when I wasn’t as kind to myself or even the people around me.

But now? Now things have changed. I need to work harder and with more consistency but I’m always trending away from you. I’ve kept my eye out for friends who will let me know if they’re worried about me. I’ve surrounded myself with people who want the best for me. They’re excited about what I’m becoming and how I’m making it happen.

While you? You get nothing.

Dearest Celina,

As I lay on the mattress thrown on the floor of that basement room where water froze if left in a glass overnight; you were there.

When I stared at the tower that comprised a job interview, wondered if I was really afraid of heights, and began to climb; you were there.

When I stepped on a plane to a country I knew nothing about for a job I wasn’t sure I could do; you were there.

As I looked into her eyes and said those three words without knowing for sure what her response would be; you were there.

When I stared into nothing and promised myself that I would begin to care for the body that has carried me through so many experiences; you were there.

When I returned from my walk this morning; you were gone.

If I could be sure of one thing in all my relationships, it is to know that I will never be resented. I do not resent you, Celina. You were there for a reason and it will drive me nuts if I insist on finding an explanation. I can accept your presence in the same way that I delight in your absence. We were meant to be, it’s true. But I’ve found that you never finished the sentence.

We were meant to be… apart.

Goodbye Celina.

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Dear Dominique,

I didn’t smile much when I was with you. Like some youthful Keating I lived in direct contradiction to Ellsworth Toohey’s edict that fat people must be jolly.

It was freezing cold outside as we took our last walk together. You didn’t seem to care. Your stuff was packed. You were ready to go. The walk was a formality. The final stanza in a biological poem about metabolized lipids.

Why did it take so long for us to reach this point? Why didn’t I take better care of myself and turn you away years ago? Was I afraid of change? Did I think my friends would reject me if I didn’t have you with me? Was I somehow looking forward to the early death you promised? Was your presence just an indicator of my unwillingness to really live my life? Dominique, was I just using you as an excuse for all the unhappy things in my life? Was I blaming you for failed relationships, broken hearts, ruined attempts, and lost opportunities?

Why didn’t I just get rid of you and move on with my life?

My hands were so cold I dropped my keys letting myself into the warmth of my house. My legs were red with cold from the wind whipping across the bay. I left you on the same bridge I left Janet. You two will get along well.

Please don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay. I’m smiling again.

It feels good to be me. Away from you. Alive.

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Much of what you’ll find in the self-help section at your local bookstore points to “self acceptance” or “self love” as the ticket to living a happier life. We are told to look in a mirror and say, “I love what I see.”

I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. The mirror tempts us to regard ourselves with the same all or nothing mentality of a critical stranger.

For example, here’s a photo taken of me this past summer:

What you see in this photo is an overweight guy who shouldn’t have cut his hair off but seems to have a sense of humor. I, for lack of a better term, have man boobs…moobs? Yep, that’s embarrassing.

But when I look at myself in the photo, I don’t just see a fat guy in a blue shirt. I see a man in the middle of climbing a mountain he had no business being on. I see a guy who didn’t let his physical insecurities get in the way of his hilarious fascination with challenges. I see a guy who is trying to change.

When I look in a mirror today, I see a similar person. But I am no more proud of myself than I would be of a friend with a half-written dissertation or 13.1 miles through a marathon. I can love the participant but it seems foolhardy and even dangerous to base my affections on what amounts to being just one of many points in a process.

It’s easy for us to define ourselves by exterior checkpoints because that is how most of the world judges us. They only see fat or thin, rich or poor, bald or hirsute. It takes a special set of eyes to notice changes in patience, kindness, and generosity. The world judges us on a shortsighted scale of extremes. Is it any wonder that most of us slip into the same mentality when examining ourselves?

The self-help books tell us to accept ourselves for who we are in the current moment. But how can we accept a person we view with a winner-takes-all approach to existence? Doing so will lead the majority of us to look in the mirror and see only a loser.

How do we cope with a loser? Not with acceptance, but with resignation. We give up some of our hope that things will change and find a way to survive by overlooking the particularly noxious bits. What a terrible way to live! Instead of appreciating our strengths and working to shore up our weaknesses, we steep any chance at satisfaction in a dark brew of doubt and self-hatred.

You are not a loser. I am not a loser. And yet we often begin the internal dialogue of a loser when we look in the mirror.

How do we break free of our tendency to greet failures with resignation and mirrors with disgust and self-loathing? How do we move from saying, “I am a failure because I have failed in this” to acknowledging our struggle and finding ways to conquer it?

Finding multiple ways to measure my progress toward a specific goal has proven to be a tremendous help in vanquishing my mirror demons and keeping “loser” out of my vocabulary. Instead of looking at the cover of Men’s Health and feeling like a loser when I see myself in the mirror, I have five things I use to measure my progress:

1. Truth Pants – I have a pair of pants that I try on every week. When the pants fit me perfectly, I buy another pair that is a bit smaller to keep the cycle going. When I’m down to my optimum weight I’ll have a pair of pants I make sure I fit into each week… just to be sure. =) Some people take lots of measurements. I prefer truth pants.
2. Scale – At this point I have a pretty good idea if I’ve lost weight or not without looking at the scale. What I’ve found the scale VERY useful for is making sure I’m staying hydrated. If my weight is down too much, it nearly always coincides with my failure to get enough water.
3. Gut Feeling - I have less of a gut to feel with these days, but there’s something to be said for listening to one’s body once you’ve had a chance to get to know each other. At this point, I notice changes in energy levels and mood based on how well I’ve taken care of myself during the week.
4. Mileage – I have a hunch, and it’s just a hunch, that I’ll not get fatter if I cover at least 30 miles by foot each week. My mirror demon has yet to come up with a good answer as to how I’m a loser if I’ve met my mileage goal.
5. Friends – Because I see myself all the time I tend to ignore positive changes in my quest to fix remaining problem areas. Friends who only see me every few weeks have been an amazing encouragement in that they notice and remark on changes that I’d forgotten about or no longer took joy in.

It’s not a perfect system but it’s doing a lot to keep me on the path of self-acceptance and away from the temptation to resign myself to things I can actually change.

When I look in a mirror, I see a person who is making a difference. I see progress. I see a guy who accepts himself but sees no reason not to change the things he’s capable of changing. I see somebody I can be proud of.

What about you? What do you see when you look in a mirror?

How do people get to be tremendously fat? I don’t mean a little chunky, beefy, or heavyset. I’m talking prodigious, massive, positively huge.

I was one of those people (very recently, in fact).

I believe severe obesity is, for many people, the result of something I call (for lack of a better name) the obesity cycle:

The Obesity Cycle

(and how to escape it)

1. Fear of failure

Sure, packing on pounds is a failure in itself. But a slow, consistent failure is easier to digest than the dramatic failure of giving up in the middle of an extreme diet. No matter how you gained the weight, it only takes a few failed diets before you start to think that perhaps diets aren’t for you and that you’re destined to be obese for life. It gets worse. Many binge dieters don’t just gain back the weight lost during extreme diets. They typically add a few extra pounds for good measure! This creates a situation in which logic dictates that going on diets will lead to even more weight gained.

Escape phrase: “My failings do not make me a failure.”

Escape route: Use tiny triumphs to remind yourself that you can follow through and do what you’ve promised yourself you’d do. Try walking for ten minutes every day for a week. Once you can do that, add more difficult challenges. Don’t feel stupid for being happy that you’ve done something small. YOU DIDN’T FAIL. Revel in it, remember it, and use that thought to push for greater wins. You can do this!

2. Low self-esteem

You don’t have to be fat to feel badly about yourself. You might not have as pretty a face as you’d like. You might not be as smart as you’d like. There are so many reasons to feel poorly about oneself! At least, there are if you decide to dwell on them. If you don’t feel like you are worth taking care of, guess what happens? You stop taking care of yourself. Low self-esteem is a popular way to enter the obesity cycle and it’s one of the most difficult to escape. Why? Because it’s all in your head. There isn’t a person in the world who can truly convince you that you are worth taking care of. You have to choose for yourself.

Escape phrase: “I am deserving of care, love, and forgiveness when I forget to show care and love to myself.”

Escape route: Ask yourself, ”am I unhappy because I’m overweight or am I overweight because I’m unhappy?” Then again, you might be the jolliest fat person in the world… or at least pretend to be. We know you cry yourself to sleep at night under a blanket of potato chip bags and snickers bar packages! I’m not a psychiatrist and I can’t offer you some 35-step plan to emotional nirvana. What I can offer you is the affirmation that you are worth taking care of. You are worth the ups and downs, pain and joy, laughter and tears of this adventure toward recognizing your value as a person.

3. Emotional eating

You eat when you’re happy, sad, alone, in a group, bored, excited… you pretty much eat as your primary physical response to stimuli. This is the part of the cycle that leads to a lot of consistent weight gain because it involves us using food to chase the pain resulting from failures and low self-esteem!

Escape phrase: “I give myself permission to express my emotions and will strive to seek real solutions to my problems and not try to hide my pain with food.”

Escape route: Watch this video and read the included article for a possible solution to your emotional eating. Some cool people left amazing comments that you might find helpful as well!

4. Poor body image

This is the part where a lot of people break into diatribes (angry speeches) about how the media is to blame for the way we view our own bodies. Some of that might be true for the people who need to lose 5lbs in order to look like a Victoria’s Secret model. I daresay none of it applies to the excessively obese among us (myself included). But we act like it does. We look at magazines, watch movies, and browse websites filled with images of people who don’t look like us. We think, “wow, if I looked like Brad Pitt then women like Angelina Jolie would want to date me.” Is it true? In part, yes, and we all know what you do when you’re feeling like crap because Angelina isn’t calling you: You put as many cheeseburgers between you and Brad Pitt as possible. This makes you fatter and gives you more reason to feel like a big fat failure.

Escape phrase: “If I had [insert celebrity name]’s body would I actually take care of it or would I soon be overweight again, eating chips and wishing I looked like [insert celebrity different celebrity name]?”

Escape route: It’s diagram time! Take a piece of paper (or open new document on your computer) and write the name of a celeb or person you wish you looked like. Now write down what you think it would feel like to wake up in the morning (alone) as that person. I think you’ll be surprised by how well you take care of your celebrity body in contrast to the way you treat yourself on a daily basis.

When I’ve asked overweight friends to try this exercise, every single one of them made their celebrity body eat a healthy breakfast and work out in the early morning. Not to get all woo-woo on you but this might just be a situation in which visualizing yourself as the person you want to be can lead to your becoming that person.

5. Isolation

It is a very, very lonely thing to be extremely overweight. When you stop caring about yourself, feel like a failure, look different from others, and you consistently feel like crap… it’s easy to see why you’d feel alone. It’s awkward to eat with others because you imagine they’re all watching you eat and judging you. Everybody is watching and thinking badly of you when you’re very heavy. Well, at least that’s what you’ve convinced yourself of. The more alone you feel, the more you eat to stave off the pain. This, as you well know deep inside, is not going to work in the long run.

Pass phrase: “I will no longer allow my weight challenge to dictate how I interact with my community.” (If you’re 600lbs and want to go rock climbing with your friends… you’ll want to modify this phrase a bit until you’ve dropped some weight.)

Escape route: Choose a non-eating activity that involves other people and participate in it regularly. If you’d like to really set yourself free, pick something that none of your friends do. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to try your hand at comedy? Sign up for a night class and really get into it! This has two benefits. The first is that you’ll be doing something you enjoy that involves human interaction but not eating. The second is that the people who have only known you to be very overweight will be the quickest to notice when you lose weight. Call me crazy but there’s nothing quite so cool as having a new friend remark on your seemingly improved health!

Do you have any questions, thoughts, additional wisdom or a story of your own to add? I’ll look for you in the comments!

::raises hand::

Well, I was. The only emotions I have about eating these days are joy and exultation. I really like eating. I had a problem though. I was eating whenever I felt stressed, frustrated, or anxious. Get this, I even ate when I was disgusted with myself for losing control over my body and turning into a mega chubster.

Talk about a vicious cycle!

I needed a solution. I found it in exercise. This should make sense to you at a very basic level because most of us, at one point or other, have expressed our feelings about a stressful situation in a physical way. As kids we were pretty good about letting our stress out. We screamed, slammed doors, knocked things over, lay down and pounded the floor with our fists (my favorite), or just sobbed wretchedly.

Then we grew up. We learned that if we wanted to be like Mr. Knightley we’d have to stop knocking things over and screaming when things didn’t go our way. (Okay, that may have just been me?) We learned to internalize everything. Nobody told us that we could let out our frustrations in a productive way. If they did, we were already too deep in the double fudge chunk ice cream to hear them.

You don’t need to be overweight for this to apply to you. I have quite a few slim friends who eat, drink, or smoke when life is jerking them around.

It’s easy to be an emotional eater. Life is stressful, you have to eat anyhow, and the process of eating gives you something to do while you’re thinking about life. Sitting down with a big dish of ice cream to watch Love Actually for the 35th time might sound good at first. Do you really need a high cholesterol catharsis though?

I decided I no longer needed Taco Bell grilled stuffed burritos in order to feel better. I was getting super fat. I needed a change. But what was I to do? How was I supposed to handle stress if not by eating?

I still had three options:

1. Cry – Oh yeah, sob like a big angry, frustrated baby. There is no shame in tears if things are bad and you need a physical release. It’s not socially acceptable for dudes to cry so gentlemen will want to grow lachrymose behind closed doors. Ladies, if you like to cry a lot, please invest in some quality waterproof eye make-up. A beautiful woman shedding a few tears isn’t frightening. A sobbing raccoon is terrifying.

2. Scream – You’ve probably met at least one screamer in your life. Something about the restaurant industry tends to attract screamers in droves. Screaming at people isn’t cool. Screaming in an empty building, at a sports event, or in your bathroom because life sucks–all quite cool.

3. Exercise – This is my favorite solution to pent-up stress. Want to feel better with just a few minutes of effort? Get your heart rate up and keep it there until you start to break a sweat. Emotional exercising has a few benefits:

• It won’t make you fat – To the contrary, you might get quite fit from this if your life is very stressful.
• It gives you control – You’re no longer the victim of uncontrolled eating. You are choosing health. You have the power.
• It makes you smarter – Increasing blood flow to your brain has a way of helping make sense of priorities and difficult questions.
• It makes you sexier – Instead of being angry and snapping at people, you’ll now have a glint in your eye and a glow to your face. Yum!
• It makes food taste better – When you stop using food as a medication, it regains some of the joy that made it so attractive in the first place. Mashed potatoes with tears in them are too salty, man!

It’s working for me. Food tastes better, I’m losing weight, and my general mood has improved. You see, I’m a rather lazy chap and if I know I’ll have to go for a run if I stay grouchy… I choose happiness. =)

I hope you’ll try it. If you struggle with emotional eating (skinny people fess up!) I hope you’ll take a moment to share your thoughts? I’d love you for it!

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Today is my birthday. The shortest day of the year. The first day of winter. The day Druids dragged pretty girls from castles and sacrificed them in the hope that the sun would return for an other summer.

Unfortunately for you, I’m not afraid of the cold and have good low-light vision. Early on this winter solstice, I was the castle, the druids, and the deepening silence. You were the chubby princess that didn’t want to go for a late night walk between the pools of light cast by tall street lamps.

How about a run? It’d be fun!

We could act out a scene from the Wizard of Oz. You could scream, “I’m melting!” as I perspire until you disappear.

You didn’t want to go for a run. You wanted to stay home and eat red velvet cake with chocolate coconut frosting. You wanted to luxuriate in mashed potatoes, fresh garlic bread, and hot apple pie with rivulets of vanilla cream running from the big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

Not a chance, darling!

I hummed a bit from Mme. Butterfly as I tied my shoes. New Balance with the knobby laces that don’t come untied. I stepped outside and locked the door behind me. I put the key in my pocket, turned to the darkness, and became a verb.

“Haydee” is also the name of Edmund Dantes’ companion in The Count of Monte Cristo. She is the one whose belief and unwavering affection pull Dantes back from the brink of vengeful insanity. She is the one who stands beside him as he distills all the wisdom of humanity into two words–”Wait and hope.”

Silly Dantes! I have hope because I stopped waiting!

Perhaps Dumas (the book’s author) was wrong and you weren’t so good for Dantes after all? Perhaps you were holding him back, too?

Dumas isn’t alive for me to ask him about what really happened after Haydee and Edmund sailed off into the distance. I know how our story ends, though. It ends with me jogging off into the sunrise while you mourn the loss of such a lovely man.

I am, you see. A lovely man. There’s just 68 pounds less of me to celebrate this birthday than there was for my last.

Kinda makes me feel like river dancing.

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