Fat Dragons are Easy Prey, Chapter 2

“In which I lose seventy pounds and discover that not-fat people can be unhealthy too.”

By 10th grade, my five foot seven inch frame weighed one hundred and ninety-five pounds. In my head, the line between fat and obese was a mere five pounds away.

My freshman year had provided just the right mix of high school cruelty balanced with acceptance by fellow nerds that I’d developed a callousness regarding my weight; I hated my fat and what it did to me, but I could still live the life I wanted. And that included some physical activity. I was short, but my fat gave me an advantage in playground basketball (one of my favorite activities).

Watching the Lakers, Pistons, and Celtics play over the years helped me develop a fugly (boy was it) inside game. My mean left hook and surprisingly quick drop step combined with a frame that could move people much taller than I got me past the first round of varsity tryouts. I couldn’t sprint from one end of the court to the other, so that was the end of it.

One morning, walking between Homeroom and Algebra, I walked past one of the gym teachers talking to another adult. I don’t remember if the second adult was also a teacher but I assume so. Let’s call him Mr. Ball.

When Mr. Ball thought I was safely out of earshot he said, “See that guy? See how he untucks his shirt? He does it so people won’t think he’s a total lardball. But it doesn’t work (chuckles). He’s still a fatso.”

I kept walking but I wanted to throw up. It was that precise moment I gave up the battle with fat. By the time I reached Algebra class, my callousness had turned to depression.

For the next three years I simply let myself go.

I stepped out of the steam of the community shower, wrapped my towel around me and headed back to my college dorm room. It was the second quarter of my freshman year. I started getting dressed. I found my shoes, looked down, and started crying. I could not see my feet. My belly dominated everything else. I was two hundred and forty-five pounds.

At that exact moment I decided to stop being fat. It wasn’t something I was going to try to do. I was just going to do it. I started immediately by making a simple change to my diet: I stopped eating cheese. I stopped eating peanut butter. I only allowed myself one serving per meal. That evening, I walked a mile around the track. I turned these small determinations into habits and dropped forty-five pounds in six months. I didn’t stop there.

I read about losing weight. I read about good eating habits. I read about regular exercise. I implemented a lot of those things over the years until I weighed one hundred and seventy pounds.

I kept 70 pounds off for over a decade but being “not fat” was a constant battle with no end in sight. My opponent, the Fat Dragon, was relentless in his pursuit.

On the outside I was a completely different person, but on the inside it didn’t matter what the scale said, what mattered was what the Dragon said. The Dragon’s attack was always the same. “You will always be fat. I will make you fat again. Fear me.”

That decade, I liberty my body while enslaving my daily life to fear of being fat again. In many ways this was worse than being fat. I was constantly running from the phantom of who I wasn’t supposed to be.

I had to kill the Dragon. I needed a sword. I needed help. Fortunately, I have the best wife ever. Ever.

Fat Dragons are Easy Prey, Chapter 1

“An adventure in which I discover that I’m fat, battle it for twenty years, and emerge a dragon slayer.”

I didn’t realize I was fat until my younger brother started training for the Olympics. Acro Gymastics was being considered for an official Olympic sport and my brother’s team was one the top four in the United States. They were at the gym training to compete later in the year for an exhibition spot. I went with my mom to pick him up.

Mom held my hand as we walked up the concrete path into the stuffy gym. Blue mats lined the floor. In the center of the room, three incredibly fit men were throwing my brother high into the air where he would do daring flips, twists, and twirls before landing gracefully on their strong arms. They were positioned in a triangle, facing each other, arms all in the center acting like a spring which shot my brother back into the air for another aerial maneuver. I was mesmerized. I was ten.

Looking down, I saw the fat rolls hanging over my belt. For the first time in my life I understood that I was fat. The realization left in me a strange state: I wasn’t angry or ashamed; I wasn’t disappointed. It was simply the shock of a brand new realization.

I looked back up as my brother and the Acro team formed a human pyramid. Whereas before I had just seen a thrilling spectacle, now I noticed every man’s muscle, every line, every strong movement, and how lithe my little brother was as they shot him up into the air again.

It occurred to me that I was the opposite of that. Nobody would be throwing me up into the air and neither would I be heaving anybody above my head and catching them again. My brain filed this away.

We went out for ice cream. I probably had Butter Pecan: my favorite from Thrifty’s.

Later that week, after watching the daily episode of Robotech, I turned the TV off and went out to my favorite spot on the hill behind my house. Beneath a large set of shrubs and rocks overlooking the brown valley below, I first asked myself why I was fat. I wondered if I always would be fat.

As an adult I’ve talked to a number of overweight people through the years and some of them are comfortable with being fat. In fact, some are downright sure fat is exactly how they are supposed to be and have no desire to be otherwise. I don’t know if they were being truthful with me or with themselves, but as a kid, holed up in my spot, I knew that I was not supposed to be fat.

I knew that my body was wrong and I had no idea how to fix it. This was perhaps the last innocent moment my fat and I had. Up to this point, our relationship had been cordial. But now, I wanted it to go. Fat, of course, wanted to stay, and it was a friendly rivalry because I didn’t yet know what the world thinks of fat people. I only knew what I thought of myself.

My brother got injured later in the year. Fortunately it wasn’t serious but it kept him out of the Olympics and eventually got him out of gymnastics. For a time, this also called a cease fire to my battle with fat.

Then I went to high school.