Getting Fat Was Fun…Until I Woke Up
Getting fat was fun. Late night pizza. Closing the bar down and stumbling home. Food challenges (have I ever mentioned that I set a record at IHOP for most pancakes eaten at one time at 25). Drinking a case of beer and then some. I would literally eat anything that was put in front of me. Food made me feel good. Food was the thing that what I was known for. I loved my wife's maternal grandmother and always will. She was a great cook and was a wonderfully caring woman. She would ALWAYS make my favorite dishes for every gathering. People remembered those things that I loved and would make them without me even asking. I'm not a picky eater, but people automatically did that. And it was really fun to know that whenever I would show up at holidays, I knew I was getting certain food. It made me feel important. Getting fat was fun…until I woke up.
The thing about food addictions and the attention that you get from people who know you as "that guy who will eat anything" is that it is really fun to have "that thing". Though by giving you the attention, people don't see you wake up the next day and have a hard time standing because you are so swollen from the sodium. They don't see that your clothes are soaked from "the meat sweats"…it's a real thing. They don't see the stretch marks that are getting bigger and darker with every day. They don't know that you sleep 2-3 hours a night because your circulation is terrible. They don't realize by feeding you with salty, buttery, sugary foods they are feeding a junkie. Don't misinterpret what I am saying. I am and will NEVER blame others for my past. I am fully accepting and responsible for what I did to myself, but dang it was fun to get fat…until I woke up.
When I finally made the conscious decision that I wanted to lose weight, I looked in the mirror and was incredibly sad. It has taken a lot of work to get where I am at today. In the past 10 years I've run over 10,000 miles. I have spent many hours and days away from my family. I try and spend as much time as I can with them while trying to maintain the body that I've worked so hard to change. There are days where it is really hard to juggle their schedule, time with my wife, work and other commitments. There are days when I wake up and am still exhausted. There are days where work is difficult because I just want to be out on the trails running. There are days where I have a hard time walking because I had a 6 hour run the day before. Getting fat was fun…and then I woke up and realized how much more fun life is now that I'm not.
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