When Will People Notice?

May 3, 2010 @ 10:16 am

I mentioned a little while ago about the random trainer at the gym who noticed my weight loss efforts slowly paying off. Every time I've tried to lose weight there's been someone who noticed first, and it's always a curiosity to me who that person is, and who else may or may not notice and say something.

It's definitely noticeable to me, since my clothes are loser and my belt is running out of notches. And it's noticeable to the Beau, who see me and hugs me every day and can tell when his arms reach just a little bit further around. But what about our friends, many of whom only see us every two or three weeks?

People in New York often have trouble seeing past their own mirrors and noticing what goes on in the lives of the people around them. I don't know how far I'll have to go before anyone says "hey, have you lost some weight?" It's further than 20 pounds, because no one's said anything yet. Is it 30? 40? 50? The thing is, fat looks like fat, so I think I probably look pretty much the same to the casual observer. I still have a big hanging gut, I still have big clothes. Until I simply must get smaller clothes, it'll be tougher for people to casually notice, maybe.

I've thought about what it would be like to go into seclusion for six months and re-enter the world 50+ pounds lighter.

I've also thought about whether I even want people to notice my journey just yet. Even though I've come further than I ever have in the last three years of trying this, I could still relapse really easily and end up right back at 300+ pounds without batting an eye. I feel like if anyone notices I've lost weight, then they'll notice if I fail again, and that would feel worse. At least for now, I'm still just a fat guy.

So I honestly do not know if I want my friends to notice, or if they notice, to say anything. I don't like talking about my weight loss journey at all, anyway, so I'd prefer to not have to have it enter the general conversation of an evening. That said, having someone notice, and even say so in a passing offhanded comment, is a nice barometer of progress. So far it's just been the random trainer dude at the gym and then this past weekend RFID (Random Friendly Indian Dude) - another random patron of the gym - also noticed I was losing weight. So if random strangers notice and say something, I suppose that's good enough for now.

3 comments | Topics: community, encouragement, friends

Online Support System

January 15, 2010 @ 01:59 pm

So my last post was a downer. It's important to process those kinds of feelings and I reserve the right to whine and moan in copious quantities for months to come, but I didn't want to leave the day with that sitting at the top of my newly revitalized blog. Because, ew.

The fact is I do feel lonely in this journey. For a variety of reasons I don't share my journey with people I know in New York - I'll talk more about that later - and so I don't really have a weight loss buddy, work-out partner, or whatever. And that's fine, I'm a solo kind of person anyway (introvert = getting energy from "alone time"). But I do recognize the importance of community and support and over the last several days I've been getting my feet wet with a newfound extended network of people on Twitter.

Most of them don't know who I am and we've not talked, and that's okay, because just reading the tweets that have been coming across has been uplifting. These are some of the most thoughtful and committed weight loss bloggers I've gotten to read over the last few years of doing this. And though I've been kind of down since 2010 started, it's been a real encouragement to know there are nice people, out there, twittering and blogging their way down a similar road. So even if I never get to know them or chat with them and they're always an @ symbol with a screen name, they still have been helpful in getting back on my oh-so-broken horse.

So thanks. :)

(and most of them are linked on the home page, btw, so you can find cool new people too).

0 comments | Topics: community, encouragement, twitter