A little competition can be a good thing - especially as a motivator for awesome weight loss. So, I decided to pick a fight with one of the F.A.T. Coalition’s newest members, Craig. (If you haven’t checked out his blog yet, be sure to go introduce yourself and give the guy some comment love!)

As it turns out, Craig and I both wear the same size pants right now: 46’s. And, perhaps less surprisingly, we both don’t want to be wearing them for too much longer (the size, not pants in general… at least I want to keep wearing pants, Craig might be a crazy sicko, who knows?)

Both of us have size 42’s in our sights, hopefully near the end of this year. Particularly, the size has emotional / mental game significance to me, as it is the same size I wore in high school. So, I’d like to get back there ASAP.

We have yet to settle on the terms for winning the bet, the stakes, or anything much more than the race, but I’m sure it’ll come in time. Craig, I know you’re reading this: got any thoughts?

More Motivation to Lose Weight

I go in tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon for my third and final interview with a company for a potential new job. Without elaborating, this is a significant career change (moving fulling into web design / development and away from nonprofit / ministry work full-time and design on the side) with a guaranteed paycheck.

Long story short, my nonprofit income has hit a major, major wall these past two months and something dramatic had to be done. Ergo, the job hunt. This would be a set forty hours of work a week with room for freelancing and nonprofit work still part time in the evenings and on weekends. I still plan on being involved with nonprofit work for the foreseeable future, but now I’ll actually be able to pay my bills, pay off debt, and not worry about overdrawing my account around the end of the month!

So, cross your fingers, and if you’re a believer in prayer, say one on my behalf today. I’d appreciate it.

But the motivation to lose weight? How’s this: I need a new sport coat for the interview as my other sport coat and suit are both so large the fit like double breasted jackets now. It’s ridiculous.

I’m now wearing a 54L suit coat. This is fantastic alone, in the context of my weight loss. But, I found out most stores don’t stock larger than a 46 or 48 at the largest. Some are able to order a 50 or even 52, but a 54 seemed to be positively out of the question.

Even though I mentally know I’ve lost a full hundred pounds, driving from store to store and wandering around the mall not having any luck made me feel just like the fat guy I’ve always been, which sucked. Then, at the big and tall (aka for fat, obese guys) stores, I saw jackets up as high as 62 and wondered if I was near that myself.

Yeah, I felt rather morose while shopping today, but it quickly set in as more revolve to lose the next several inches off my chest and gut. And that resolve fueled the fire of a grueling rowing machine and HIIT on the elliptical machine cardio set at the gym this evening.

I’ve taken some time to look at some size charts online. Right now, my chest size is 54 inches. XXL’s medium range is 48 – 50, while XL seems to average around 45 – 47. That gives me five inches to aim for to get comfortably into XXLs again, and able to buy clothes from “normal stores.”

I’d love to hit this mark by Christmas. I haven’t been tracking my chest sizes (or any other body measurements, apart from sporadic “gut checks,” so I don’t know if this is feasible. The numbers tracking will start today, though!

Past that, it’s a full eight or nine inches to reach the mythological land of XLT shirts. That’s what I’m really aiming for, and it’s only a matter of time.

Today’s Weigh-In: 334.6 pounds
Total Weight Lost: 105.4 pounds
Days Till Next Mini-Goal: 19
Next Mini-Goal Weight: 330
Pounds To Go: 4.6

In my life, I’ve had two girl friends offer to hook me up with one of their friends. Both of those instances, oddly enough, have happened within the last year and a half.

The first time involved a a sister-like friend of mine who is a devious schemer. When my friend’s friend and I finally met up for coffee, I discovered that she was a pretty big girl herself ( as my friend had told me honestly and up-front, as I’m sure she described me to her).

This person was, in all fairness, pretty cool, but nothing came of it as neither one of us was really feeling it.

Then, this past weekend, I ended up hanging out with a bunch of relative strangers / new friends (long,long story that involved friends of friends of friends). When one of these girls found out that I was single, she then asked if I wanted her to hook me up with a good friend of hers.

She ended up being a big girl, too. Apart from the physical attraction dynamic, her personality was not one to mesh with mine very well (especially when she tried grinding with me – awkward!).

So, there’s my two stories of meddling, matchmaking friends. I don’t think it’s an accident or coincidence at all that both girls I was hooked up with were big (like me).

Hey! You’re Overweight and Single, So Is She!

In no way, shape, or form do I consider my friends to have been malicious or anything, this drive seems to come from a more subconscious or at least, never verbalized, level:

Hey, I’ll hook up my awesome, cool friend who is fat and chronically single with this other fat and always single person! They’re both overweight, so they should be fine with that in each other – and besides they’re both cool people. They’d be great for one another!

Well meaning as it is, it just strikes me as very patronizing and insulting. Can’t say I blame them or anyone who’s done the same thing, though. The logic seems to make sense on the surface, after all.

I am incredibly flattered and happy when a friend wants to hook me up with someone she knows. It’s encouraging that you’ve met some intangible “is this person safe, sane, and cool” criteria to even have the offer made.

But the question I really want to ask is this: why can’t they hook me up with one of your hot friends?? Well, it’s probably because I’m not a “hot friend” to be hooked up with.

I mentioned this line of thought back in March in my 440 Pound Woman post. I wouldn’t date a 440 pound woman (or, 334 pound woman, now), so why should I expect any girl to do the same for me? I don’t – not, at least, anymore.

Not Just A Great Personality

I’m the guy that girls explain to their friends as having a “great personality.” I mean, I do have a flipping great personality and all, but consider this following exchange:

Girl A: You should totally meet my friend Will. He’s really cool. He’s… pretty tall, like six-four. He’s got such an awesome personality and is fun to hang out with.

Girl B: Oh, okay, that’s cool. Is he pretty cute?

A: Uh, yeah. He’s not bad looking, such a cool guy, though.

B: Oh. … Is he, like… athletic? You know, in shape? … He’s not a fattie is he?

A: Well, I mean, he’s a pretty big guy. Just big, you know, some meat on his bones…

B: Ew, gross.

A: C’mon! I’m telling you, he’s such a blast to hang out with. You really should meet him!

B: I’m not sure…

Don’t get me wrong here: personality is absolutely key. A completely average looking guy can be with a girl provided he can bluster his way in with enough bravado and confidence (regardless of whatever girls say about just wanting a “nice guy”). Confidence and self-assuredness is the number one trait a guy can have to be attractive to women.

But with that said, the dynamic of physical attraction can’t be ignored. Good looks and a good body are still important. I don’t have much going for me in the good looks department (let me make a list: bad & crooked teeth, big off-center nose, small beady eyes, freaky skin condition, etc), so what I’ve got to work with has to be my body.

And as this whole blog testifies to, my body isn’t much of anything worth getting hot and bothered by right now. So for the time being, getting healthy and strong is mission critical.

I don’t want to be the fat friend with a great personality for the rest of my life! I don’t have to be the fat guy. I am learning that from a purely physiological perspective these past few months. But the concept of being cute or having a girl be attracted to me is something that just boggles my mind still.

No Girls Right Now For Me

I put myself out there and got shot down by a girl I took out on some dates back in December. Recently, I really invested emotionally (more than I admitted or realized) in a girl whom I traveled to visit in northern California. I thought this time might be different; it wasn’t. The whole visit was a train wreck. I’ve spent the last several weeks moving on and pretending it never happened.

As the fat friend with the great personality, let me fully admit to putting some major, major walls up inside and getting back into the routine of being by myself for right now.

Would I love to be in a relationship? Do I still want to get married? Yeah, all that stuff, but let’s be honest – it’s not happening right now (see the 440 Pound Woman Principle). So, I’m going to do my best to quit getting hopes and dreams up and thinking about all that stuff.

For the foreseeable future, it’s Will and no one else in a battle to the death with the ghosts of his pasts and the specters who want to steal his future.

For the record, if any of of you try to hook me up with your friends after reading all this, I will headbutt you.* Very hard. Without warning. No questions asked.

* If your friend’s cute and cool, well, I may be able to make an exception.

I’ve been working behind the scenes on a revamp of 4XLT. Part of that is taking some time to write out my story - and lots of other odds and ends. I’ve just updated my About page with the following part of my health story:

I’ve always been a big guy; even as a kid I towered over my friends. Though I may rightfully be considered “big boned,” the truth is that over my big bones and large frame is a considerable layer of polar bear fat.

By the time I graduated high school, I was wearing size 44 pants and between 280 and 300 pounds. Things went downhill from there…

College

Not was I just no longer playing any sports, but once I was in college, I pretty much stopped doing anything physical. I watched my clothing jump a size to 3XLT early on as I sat around, played video games, and did little more.

However, my sophomore year saw a brief stint at health and weight loss as I was drug to the on-campus gym by a friend of mine in his own attempt to slim down. Following the break-up with my girlfriend at the time and once my friend’s wedding day passed, my commitment to getting healthy and a brash claim of losing a hundred pounds in a year quickly passed.

By the time I graduated, my weight had ballooned significantly, and I had hardly noticed it. Fed by a horrifying diet of constant soda drinking and fast food, I stood at the cusp of 4XLT clothing. But beyond the weight gain, my senior year of college was when I first noticed the darkening skin, particularly on my cheeks and neck.

This turned out to be a medical condition known as Acanthosis Nigricans. It’s a prediabetic condition marked by insulin resistance – and a bright red warning sign to me that I was going to end up like my dad as a Type II diabetic if I didn’t change my ways.

Getting Even Bigger

I didn’t change my ways.

In fact, after I graduated college, things became even worse. I continued to drink Dr. Pepper and root beer in ridiculous quantities. In fact, it was not rare for me to go through a two liter bottle in a day and a half.

Then, to add to my love affair with pop was the poor eating habits that just got worse. Being back home while I raised my budget to work with the nonprofit campus ministry Chi Alpha, I often ate lunch with my dad if I was home for lunch and not at a meeting.

As a rule, these lunches were either barbecue or a two or three plate trip at the local Chinese buffet. As a rule, it was always bad news.

I moved from Oklahoma out to Portland, Oregon in November 2006. By 2007, I started wearing 4XLT shirts and crossed the threshold of a four foot circumference by wearing size 48 pants (later up again to 50s).

I had a sudden realization of the lunacy of what I was doing. I was buying 4XL shirts. That’s four letter X’s in front of that L. XXXXLT – how pathetic.

I got so sick and disgusted at myself that I knew I had to change. I had no idea how much I weighed – not even a mental guess – as the doctor office’s scales had been unable to weigh me for a few years.

After some searching on the internet, I read about other similarly obese guys weighing themselves on the laundry scales of local hospitals. I knew what I had to do, even if I died from shame and embarrassment.

The shame and embarrassment was there in heaping amounts, but when I saw the number on the scale come around, disgust joined the other two in equal amounts.

I didn’t even weigh in the 300s. I was 437 pounds. I had gained almost a hundred fifty pounds since high school.

Soon thereafter, I plopped down the cash for a gym membership and a few sessions with a trainer. I even signed up on a weight loss tracking website and invited a few friends to keep me accountable. I was going to change!

But much like my brief flirtation with weight loss in college, I soon lost all drive to make any change and had resigned myself once again to being the fat guy.

The Change Begins

But in December 2007, I stumbled upon a group of weight loss bloggers who called themselves the F.A.T. Coalition. Inspired by a number of guys who began in the mid-to-upper 300s and had lost 90 pounds or more, I knew it was possible and I had to try again.

And even though I was more than 60 pounds away from the biggest guys in the Coalition at their respective heaviest weights, I knew that I had to start somewhere.

Their stories, combined with a number of radical weight loss stories other’s had shared on the Men’s Health forums (including one 125 pounds lost in a year story) made be realize that if others could do it, there was absolutely no reason I couldn’t.

The weight loss began in earnest the following January. A friend and fellow 400+ pounder and I agreed to a 20 pound weight loss race. As we’re both poor, the loser was going to face public humiliation of some devious sort.

We had initially thought to force our opponent to walk a certain number of blocks downtown without his shirt on, and before he could put it on or get in the car, he had to make a pass at a girl! Talk about brutal! We later reconsidered and agreed to make the loser host a poker game… shirtless.

Though my friend quickly dropped out of the race (I never had the heart to force him to live up to the bet), I kept going. At first, I had no idea what to expect.

I set my first goal in January to be under 400 pounds in time for my twenty-fifth birthday in late March. I didn’t even know if that was a realistic goal, but I was going to go for it.

Celebrating with friends three months later at 397 pounds was a great feeling.

I See the Future

Now its the middle of August, and I’m stepping out into three digits of weight loss. I still have a hard time fathoming that I’ve lost so much.

Still, there’s so far left to go. To start with, I’m setting my sights on being under 300 pounds for the first time since high school in time for my sister’s wedding in December. That ends up being 140 pounds total of weight loss! I have to shake my head in disbelief when I think about that, because the number just seems so ludicrous.

I couldn’t have fathomed aiming for a weight in the 290s by 2009 back in January, but here I am, eight months later, and that’s what I’m gunning for.

Past that, I’ve set 250 as something of an arbitrary and completely mythical goal. I’ve never weighed 250 pounds as an adult, so I have no idea what I’ll look like at that weight.

Once I get there, we’ll see where I should go from there. But regardless, I see the future, and it looks great.

Today’s Weigh-In: 334.0 pounds
Total Weight Lost: 106.0 pounds
Days Till Next Mini-Goal: 24
Next Mini-Goal Weight: 330
Pounds To Go: 4.0

I’ve been doing some prep work on launching version three of 4XLT for the past few days. In particular, last night I wrote out some of my story and how I got to being 440 pounds last year. While writing, I also looked for some photos of me at my biggest.

I found one… and was repulsed.

A couple times the past few days, I’ve run across a very obese person at the coffee shop or at a store. I tried not to stare, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder sadly if that’s exactly how people saw me at my largest. As a fellow fat person, I of all people should have some compassion with these individuals, but even I had trouble looking at them with little more than well hidden… revulsion.

Was that how people saw me? “Oh God, look at that guy.” “How’d he get so big?” “Ungh.” Goodness, it’s so embarrassing to look at that photo. I was disgustingly huge.

And now, even a hundred pounds down, I’m still huge. I’m not complaining and degrading or anything about my weight loss so far - I’m thrilled to have gotten so far already. It’s just that there’s still a long, long road I’ve got to walk down. But, I’ll walk down the steps one at a time.

I’m just tired of that life and everything being obese represented: no hope, not caring, resignation, melancholy. I refuse to go back or stay here in the 330s.

I feel awfully gross and pathetic about my recent past today, I got to admit. Oh well, here’s to the next couple of steps to get to where I want to be.

Today’s Weigh-In: 334.6 pounds
Total Weight Lost: 105.4 pounds
Days Till Next Mini-Goal: 26
Next Mini-Goal Weight: 330
Pounds To Go: 4.6

Alright, alright, alright.

I let Friday be an “off / cheat” day, and really enjoyed all sorts of bad food. Honestly, I didn’t plan on it being a cheat day, but had been going hard and strong for the past two weeks plus, so I took it easy. And no, I don’t regret my fast food and french fries and Dr. Pepper. It was delightful, so can it!

But, past that, Saturday I got right back at it with the right eating (and a 240 calorie Ho-Ho snack that was figured into my calories) and a lot of walking downtown in the 98 degree heat. Today, more of the same with keeping my nutrition under control.

Ill write more tomorrow on my experimental, around-the-house lifting program that I’ve been doing while I’ve been in super save money mode (so, no ten miles round trip drives to the gym or anywhere else).

Stay strong this weekend, FAT!