4XLT

Back in high school I was right at the threshold of wearing normal sized clothes you could buy in stores: 2XL shirts and size 42 pants. In the seven years since, I ballooned up to my highest of 4XL shirts and size 50-54 (depending on the cut) pants back in January.

Too bad none of them fit any more. The 4XLs look like ponchos, and even the 3XLs are too poofy.

In a fit of ill-fitting, my pants are falling down and this shirt looks like a poncho clothing anger, I hit up the malls this weekend to buy some new clothes. And what a good weekend to do it, as I stumbled into some sweet sales. Two shirts for $7, a sweet DKNY shirt from Macy’s marked 50% off, and two pair of khakis for $20 a pop. Not too bad.

But do you want to know what the best part is?

The shirts were all 2XLs. The pants? Purchased in the “normal” part of the store, as size 44s.

So, I faced a bit of a problem back home: what am I going to do with all the fat guy clothes I’ve got? To make room in my closet, I packed up some of the 4XL’s a few weeks ago. But now, it was time to clear everything else out that I don’t ever plan on wearing again (because I will never be that obese again).

So, I hauled everything that was too big out of my closet to take to Goodwill. Here’s what I came up with:

1 suit
2 blazers
1 pair of dress slacks
2 khakis
2 pair of athletic shorts
2 cargo shorts
4 jeans
13 shirts

Now, there’s so much more room for me to enjoy the XXL clothes. But, I gotta keep working hard to hit my goal of 310 by November 12th. I’ve totally missed my 320 by October 12th goal and am still stuck in the low 320s, but I’m going hard. Workouts have been regular, again, and my nutrition has been on track.

Man, I wonder what it will be like to buy size 40 or 38 pants and wear only an XL?

It’s been a long, boring week at work, and today doesn’t look like it will let up. So, here’s to some humor:

And finally, if you are the proud parent, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, neighbor, babysitter, or friend of a parent of a baby or toddler, you owe it not just to yourself but the world to ensure that you get a hold of this costume:

Matt at Confessions of the Guy at Weight Watchers tagged me in a recent post. So, now, I’ve got to tell “random facts or interesting things about myself.” Here goes!

1: I’ve got an Osage name: not many people know this, as I look like a generic white guy, but I’m part Osage (Wikipedia article). My great, great grandfather was Jim Bigheart – an all around remarkable individual who was chief of the tribe around the turn of the century and key in securing the Osages’ mineral rights to the natural gas and oil under the reservation.

So, though I may not speak of it a lot (because I look like a generic white guy), I’m actually very proud of this part of my past. And part of that is my Osage name. I was given this name five years ago in a naming ceremony by Harry Red Eagle back in Oklahoma, and it is something I hold very dear. I am Leh-Mah-Zhe, which roughly translated means “Little Sacred Hawk.&rquo;

2: I’m a total geek. I read epic fantasy novels, and in particular love the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson. Combine that with all the RPGs I’ve played on the Super NES, occasional forays into Dungeons & Dragons, and the comics I read (The Goon, Hellboy, Nocturnals), and it all ads up to one thing: geek. …But I make it cool.

3: I’m going to beat Tolkien at his own game. I read Lord of the Rings in high school, and then I read through the numerous appendices. I thought the detail J.R.R. Tolkien put into his fictional world was the coolest thing ever. So, for the past few years I’ve been diddling away at my own world and fiction series. It is awesome… so very, very awesome.

4: Billy Joel was my favorite musician as a kid. It all started when my older half-sister made a mix tape for me in elementary. While I didn’t like most of it (Elton John, pm dawn, Indigo Girls, etc), there were some songs that I really liked. And as it turned out, they were all by Billy Joel. I still like him today.

5: I’m a Green Player.If it’s a board game, I’m taking the green pieces. Think not? We’ll fight.

6: My dream car is a Jaguar XK… …or other European grand tourer. But, an XK would be sweet. I’d drive all over America in that thing.

Who’s Next?

Like all great internet memes, I’ve got to keep this thing going. Good thing I’ve got a lot of blogging buddies:

Gage (Ripx180), Jason, Dale, Andrew #1 (Roder/RodeDaddy), and Andrew #2 (…isgettingfit.com) – you guys are pretty active bloggers (or once were before you got skinny!), so you get passed the meme batton. Now get to it!

Today’s Weigh-In: 326.8 pounds
Days till Goal: 2
Pounds to Go: 6.8

I’m up a pound today, but I’m not pitching a fit. In fact, I’m not too bothered about it at all, apart from the fact it completely takes me out of the running to make my goal of 320 by October 12th.

I’ve been tracking my food intake rigidly this week and so can look back at how I’ve been doing, which has been alright. In fact, my calories yesterday were right below 2600, so I’m really surprised at the gain. However, it just helps me tweak things and keep going.

I’ll blog more extensively about my nutrition tracking after the weekend, but for now, I’m going to enjoy a weekend of strictly sticking to doing nothing. Last weekend was super, super busy (and super, super fun), and so this go-round, I’m going to collect on some R & R.

Hanging with a friend tonight, maybe watching the Pokes play Mizzou Saturday at the sports bar a half mile from my house, and then chilling on Sunday at my apartment and watching the NFL. I’ve got a friend who’s coming over for a bit to watch the Seahwaks take on the Packers Sunday. Nice and relaxed.

You guys have a good weekend!

Today’s Weigh-In: 325.8 pounds
Days till Goal: 3
Pounds to Go: 5.8

With my recent mini mental reboot, I’ve been thinking once again of the question of why I’m losing weight and working so hard at changing my life. What a nice surprise to see I’m not alone in asking the existential questions among fat loss / health bloggers!

Steve at Weight Loss Weapons recently touched on the motivating factor for fat loss and lifestyle change:

The success I have achieved so far was not because I wanted to lose weight for myself. It was because I wanted more for my kids, more for my wife and more for my friends/teammates.

More in the sense that I wanted my kids to be more active, … to have a father that was there for all the best moments in their lives. I can’t do that if I’m dead from a heart attack!

For my wife…I wanted her to have a husband that she could be proud of and one that could give her a more fun and active life. That’s hard to do from the couch!

Then, I stumbled onto Tricia at Girly Jock who wrote about the same thing:

Simply put, I work out because for the longest time my siblings made fun of my lack of athleticism. So any way that I can prove them wrong, and even show them up is a huge deal to me. Even my parents comment about how much more I’m doing compared to when I was a kid. And it’s odd, because even my anorexia had a partial root in wanting to prove them wrong (they also told me that all I did was sit around and stuff my face.)…

Now I work out to be strong and tough and a badass.

So What About Me?

I’ve always said, to myself and to others, that I am losing weight for myself. To change my life. To become better than what I have been. For me and for no one else.

I’ve got a fair number of minor, tangential reasons for losing weight (wearing normal sized clothes, fitting better in airplanes and small cars, being okay with my photographs, etc). But beyond all of them is my deeper desire to change my life and identity.

Not so much in any weird or crisis meltdown way, but just that I’m tired of being the token fat guy / big brother figure. I don’t want to be Friar Tuck; I want to be Robin Hood (or maybe the Sheriff of Nottingham – he gets to have a lot of fun, doesn’t he?)

And let me be completely honest here and throw it out there in the open: I want to look good for the ladies! Dangerous and rugged Robin Hood, not lazy & rotund Friar Tuck, right? I’ve been in the realm of super-obese, 400+ pounds the past five years. Is it any coincidence that I’ve not been in a serious relationship that whole time?

I think not.

I know a big, big part of it all this work of lifestyle change is all in my head, especially when it comes to the girls. But, my size and weight problem feeds a lot of my wonky perspective of my self-esteem and self-image.

But I don’t think they’re two separate issues. Confidence and fat loss really do feed one another. I’m finding that as I lose weight, I get more confident (about life in general and not just with the girls). And as I get more confident, that bravado spills over into the health arena as an unshakable confidence that I can change my life. That leads to more fat loss, which starts the cycle over again.

But the bottom line is that I’m sick and repulsed by who I used to be. I didn’t care. I was lazy. I didn’t do anything hard. I lived with my heart on my sleeve. I was soft. I trusted people too easily. I wasn’t willing to work hard for anything. I was pitiful.

I’m not returning to that old life – ever again. It’s more than just the fat loss. It’s more than the 115 pounds I’ve lost so far. It’s more than the 85 or so I’ve got left to go. It’s my life; it’s the very way I view myself. It’s how others view me. It’s why I got the 440 tattoo on my forearm.

So what about you? What’s your fat loss motivation? If you’ve made considerable progress, how has your motivations changed?