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Tommy Tomlinson's 'The Weight I Carry'

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Steak Snabler, Jan 10, 2019.

  1. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    I’ll give this a read. I remember the Jared Lorenzen story he did several years ago.
     
  2. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    You're right about all of this.

    Three times in my adult life I've lost a significant amount of weight, at least 40 pounds. I didn't think the approach I used was particularly drastic. I didn't do an extreme diet, though if anything maybe I relied on exercise too much. I thought what I was doing was sustainable and I could keep the weight off.
    Each time I was wrong. The bad habits always came back, often without even realizing it.
    Right now, I'm not the heaviest I've been in my life, but I'[m close. I'm also at an age, where the chickens will come home to roost fairly soon if I can't make changes and make them stick.
    I'm trying to think about those efforts and what I did right and what I did wrong each time. I hope I can figure it out and apply those lessons.
    I start off each day with the best of intentions but more often than not, at some point it falls apart. Sometimes I wonder if I really want to lose weight.
    Once I got into a discussion with someone who said that fat people choose to be fat. If everyone always behaved rationally and did a cost/benefit analysis of every decision they made, I'd agree. Maybe I'm arguing semantics, but that's like saying a bank robber (and I'm not saying overeating and robbing a bank are morally equivalent) chooses to go to prison. Yes, it's much more likely than not that he will go to prison, but that's not part of the plan,. He plans to get away with it, go to South America and live happily ever after.
    I'm not comfortable in my own skin. I walk too slowly and take up too much space in public places which inconveniences others. I when I have to pick something up off the floor, I have difficulty getting back up. I haven't been diagnosed with any serious obesity-related illnesses yet, but it's only a matter of time if that doesn't change. I'm looking at a shorter life and a lesser quality of life. Who in their right mind, knowing those consequences, would choose that? Yet somehow, when it comes to choosing what and how much I eat, I've chosen to eat too much of the wrong foods, which leas to those consequences.
    I guess I'm not the most rational person. I do tend to be a short-term thinker and that's caused problems in several areas of my life.
     
    Doc Holliday and Steak Snabler like this.
  3. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    It's because we don't really want to lose weight. I mean, we do, but not just for the sake of it, or for the very viable but very long-term and unglamorous goal of being healthy. We want to do it so that we can more easily do fun, active things, engage more easily and confidently with others, have a shot at loving someone and being loved back (without feeling like, or actually having, others wondering what in the world our significant other sees in us). We want to do it so maybe we won't sound like we're going to keel over and die trying to climb any flight of stairs, or, indeed, dread any time we see one, or sweat like a pig after doing any little thing, or so we don't have to go into a store and hate shopping for clothes, etc.

    There always has to be a motivation. No one who is very overweight loses weight just to lose weight, even in spite of all the very real benefits -- benefits that don't even have to do with our personal desires or any of the more gratuitous positives.

    Because they can't do it. And, yes, it is just easier not to, despite any best intentions and good efforts. That doesn't mean we "choose to be fat." Usually, it just means we can't do what we have to do.

    And that's because if the good intentions and best efforts don't stay in place, forever, the weight will come back whenever it is they stop being executed on a consistent basis. People will play dumb and blame things primarily on genetics, but anybody with real weight problems that are even partially due to reasons other than that knows what they have to do to get on track, or get back on track. Yes, you can bet that they know what changed, and what, exactly they have to do start losing weight again. Even if they don't say so.

    I do. The night-time (even overnight) junk-food eating and the fewer gym workouts, at least in comparison to what I was doing a couple years ago, are two easily pinpointed culprits. And when I go back to what I was doing right before, any weight I want to lose will, in all likelihood, come off again.

    But such change, often on a (pardon the pun) large-scale basis, to boot, is so hard that it usually doesn't happen long enough to make a significant or long-term difference for most people, just because it has to happen for all time. It's more than most already overweight people can do on their own.

    In that sense, it's an addiction, and unlike others, it is one that can't be truly be turned away because, yes, people must eat. They just must eat less/better, and exercise more. There's no getting around it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2019
  4. Hermes

    Hermes Well-Known Member

    It's why I think the best way to lose weight is to mechanize eating. I chose to eat the same three meals of incredibly nutritious food that ticks almost every box for what the body needs to create energy every day for two years. I've widened my menu with time, but whenever I get off kilter go back to the plan.

    Again, people think this is crazy. I argue that taking the decision making-process out of eating eliminates your irrational, short-term thinking.

    Jim Harbaugh was once ridiculed for saying if you wear the same thing every day, it saves you a couple minutes of time. That's worthy of mockery. But when you use that logic with food, you're not saving a miniscule amount of time. You're saving calories and not letting you irrational brain make stupid decisions. It's how process and a lack of choice can actually create a wonderful result.

    We've rejected it so long because it goes against everything we've ever been sold about food. That it's what we're able to control in our lives most. When people are depressed they turn to food because they have the power in that relationship where everywhere else they don't.

    Living a healthy life is handing over that power and taking it away from yourself.

    It's why I think it's so hard. You just have to reject your free will when it comes to food and turn it into a chore. That's so tough to get started and stick to.
     
  5. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    I have some health problems, so I’ve considered sleeve surgery. Multiple friends have done it.

    And I’m not against it. But I don’t feel strong enough to keep a healthy routine. What’s the point of the torture of pre- and post-op — I think you have to wait two or three months until you can have solid food — if you’ll go straight back to the old issues? Surgery is a tool, not a cure all.
     
  6. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    Can I ask what your three meals are?
     
  7. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    This is due to arrive tomorrow and I'll dive right in - almost done with my current book so the timing is perfect
     
    UNCGrad likes this.
  8. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    All I know is if it were easy, nobody would be fat.
     
  9. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    Everyone has to do what they think best for themselves, and also, perhaps, what they're able to do, insurance- and affordability-wise. Also, I haven't undergone the gastric-sleeve procedure but a gastric bypass. But just know that the prepping probably wouldn't be torture (unless you consider doing the undoubtedly required loss of a certain amount of weight beforehand to be torture). That process is generally used to gauge your readiness for the operation and the after-work.

    The procedures themselves, these days, are usually done laparoscopically, so scarring is minimal, and recovery from the operation itself is really quite fast and easy, assuming all goes well, of course. I'll say this by way of comparison: My recovery from a hysterectomy took much longer (I was in the hospital almost a week), it hurt much more, and was much more difficult than what I went through with my gastric bypass (was out of the hospital on the third day after).

    And the hope, and really, the result, if successful, is that you will not go straight back to any old ways, or issues. That is the whole point of the first couple of years after surgery, especially, when people tend to lose the most as a direct result of the procedure. The idea is to limit appetite (this happens both metabolically, as well as because of an actually physically smaller stomach) AND to train/teach yourself -- the body, mind, and spirit -- in the new habits required of a new way of life.

    If you do that, along with the help of the now more limited amount of food that you even can eat, plus learn to eat different, more healthy things because your stomach/body can no longer tolerate much of certain less-healthy things like heavy foods, too-rough foods, or carbonated drinks (an example that is STILL true for me: Pork used to be a favorite meat for me; post-surgery, even 10 years later, I really can't eat it much; any more than three bites of pork, or more than, say, two pieces of bacon, or half a Costco hot dog, in a dish, without the bun, and I'll feel it, gag, and try to bring it up, because my stomach has rejected it -- just will not let it go down. Or, if it does stay with me, it will sit, uncomfortably, for some time. My body just doesn't digest it well anymore). If you consider all this, and if you take on new exercise routines, to boot, well, you won't be able to help but lose weight.

    Hopefully and ideally, the new habits tried and learned during this 18-month to two-year period -- referred to somewhat euphemistically but accurately as "the honeymoon phase" after weight-loss surgery, will stick and will become your new routine(s) for as long as possible, helping you get back to, if not always necessarily thin, then at least to more healthy, and certainly, to more normalcy.

    In other words, it levels the playing field again so that the obese person at least has a fighting chance to get to a lower weight, and to learn and maintain a healthier lifestyle, assuming of course, that they've done the work involved, and that they keep it up.
     
  10. Doc Holliday

    Doc Holliday Well-Known Member

    Man, there is more honesty in this thread that I think I've ever read before on this website. It's so encouraging to see people bare their souls, even if it is under anonymity. I can only think this is helpful even if on some sort of small level.

    What I want to add is that this column is one of the best pieces I've read in years. You can feel the depth, the pain, the emotion this guy poured into it. Such a heart-felt and gut-wrenching piece. I could feel my stomach turn and my heart sink with some of the things he said.

    Let me say this from the other side of the aisle. I've never really had weight issues. Yes, I gain weight and I lose weight usually by design. I've always been able to control it since I was a kid. I would just eat less or not eat at all some days because I had better things to do, and that even holds true now. Some days, I just go to the gym or get busy at work, and decide to eat later. The most I've ever weighed is 191 lbs. after lifting weights for about two years every other day. Right now I weigh 175.

    Typically, I will gain 8-10 pounds from August, when football begins, to the middle of March, when basketball ends. I call this my "winter coat." But, like clockwork, every spring, I start shedding my winter coat. I just don't eat as much because it's warmer. I become more active, at the gym and outside, so I burn more calories.

    Now, I love food, and I could easily gorge myself on all kinds of shit I shouldn't. I mean, man I love twinkies and I love pop tarts, and french fries are probably my biggest vice in life. And I can't forget sweet tea. I don't think I could live without sweet tea. So there are times that I have to consciously make the decision not to eat some of this crap or limit my intake because I know what's going to happen if I keep on.

    Here's the thing about my job, though, and how it affected my eating.

    I always noticed how sports writers seemed to be fatasses and fanboys, and it made me angry. I never wanted to be classified like that, so I used other people's issues to motivate myself from the same pitfalls. My thought was, if I'm going to cover some of the best athletes in the country, then I need to be fit and presentable so I can gain the coaches and the athletes' respect. Trust me, I've heard many a derogatory word by coaches and players about sports writers that were obese. I didn't want the same things said about me.

    This article humanized all those issues that overweight people go through. It helped me see and feel the pain, embarrassment and insecurity people with weight problems have. When a column moves you like that, it's damn good writing.

    I hope this author achieves all his goals, especially riding in the middle seat of an airplane. Hopefully, I can use this piece to be more understanding in the future. I'm glad I clicked that link.
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2019
    WriteThinking and BrownScribe like this.
  11. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    I thought that, too, and was often (self-) conscious of it, and sometimes wondered, ruefully and negatively, what they must have been thinking of me (although it never actually occurred outwardly and I was never treated poorly by athletes because of it). Despite any problems with "being a fat person in America," much of obese people's perceptual and emotional issues are mostly self-thought, self-taught and self-inflicted. It's another thing that makes it so hard, and another reason most weight-loss surgery programs require a stint in counseling before any procedure is undergone.
     
  12. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    I remember covering the Blue Jays, my first days as a sportswriter, there was a very, very big radio guy. I want to say he was 400 pounds. We're around Carlos Delgado's locker, and Carlos was looking a little soft, and the radio guy asked him a question about his fitness. And Carlos, who was a very good guy, just kind of gave a look, where he thought about saying, Have you ever looked in a mirror, but then blew off the question in a less unkind way. And I was like, Well, I don't want to be that guy.

    As a whole, the profession has to have one of the unhealthiest collective populations. The fit guys, like Tom Verducci, stand out like freaks.
     
    Doc Holliday likes this.
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