Getting to the "Why" of the Matter

Until recently, I could not remember a time in my life when I was not extremely overweight.  When I was in elementary school we used to have a class Valentine’s Day party every year.  Each student would give everyone in the class some candy and a card.  In those days, we used to exchange small, cartoonish cards - maybe 3 by 5 inches in size.  One particular year I remember bringing all of my candy and cards home in a bag.  I rushed home and excitedly opened up all of my cards.  But excitement led quickly to tears when I realized that out of the roughly twenty cards I received, all but a few had a picture of an elephant on the front of the card. 

By the time I was in high school my parents, friends, neighbors and teachers alike started to ask me “why” I don’t lose weight.  I didn’t have an answer.  The older I got, the more the questions turned to more direct pressure.  Once while visiting my grandmother in a nursing home my father asked me if I noticed anything about the people there.  In a questioning voice I replied, “They are old.”  My dad said, “No, none of them look like you.  People your size don’t live long enough to end up in a place like this.”  And it didn’t stop with my father.  Despite the fact I have always been blessed with good health, as a young man, more than one doctor told me that if I didn’t lose weight I would likely not live long enough to raise children.  In the end, it seemed as though a lot of people in my life had identified reasons “why” I should lose weight.  But when continually confronted with that question, “Why don’t you lose weight?” I never had an answer.

When faced with a significant life challenge like overcoming substance abuse, getting out of a dysfunctional relationship, losing weight or whatever, it has often been said that people can’t be successful until they are ready.  While that sounds good, for a long time I am not sure that I ever knew exactly what that meant. But at some point, for reasons still unknown to me, I had an epiphany.  The reason I could not answer the question, “Why don’t you lose weight?” is because I could not give people the answer I thought people wanted. It seemed like people wanted me to lose weight so that I would feel better, so I would be healthier, so I could live longer, so I could have more energy to play with my children, etc.  While any or all of these may be perfectly good reasons to lose weight, they were not my reasons.  Only when I was able to identify why I wanted to lose weight did I become motivated to start this life changing journey. 

So why did I decide to lose weight?  It all started while I was out to dinner with my wife one evening a few years ago.  I was looking around the restaurant when I realized that, yet again, I was the biggest man in the room.  Through most of my adult life, almost no matter where we were, it seemed like I was the biggest person in the room. It felt like a crushing, miserable and inescapable reality.  Over the years, this simple fact wore on me.  But for whatever reason, on that night, I realized that there was nothing inescapable about my situation.  If I wanted to live a different reality I could make that happen.  At one point I turned to my wife and said, “I no longer want to be the biggest man in the room.”  It was in that moment that I discovered why I wanted to lose weight.

If you are thinking about trying to lose weight, find your motivation in a reason that makes sense to you, not to the people in your life who may want you to lose weight.  Once you have that reason, you have the key that will open the door to your own weight loss journey.