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.