Why I don’t talk about being 8 stone lighter

“I’m trying to figure out what exactly it is that I want to say”

You may notice that I’ve been rather quiet on here of late. The reason is that I’ve been writing and rewriting this post, trying to figure out what exactly it is that I want to say.

One of my “imaginary friends” (as my wife refers to people I only know through Twitter), Sarah Victoria has been writing incredibly-brave and honest posts about her struggles with bruxism, body dysmorphia and anxiety recently. As I’ve been rapt reading them, something occurred to me:

While my personal issues pale in comparison to what she’s managing to overcome, there is one, particularly-huge change to my life that I’ve made recently and, while I produce reams of drivel about all manner of subjects on here, it’s never occurred to me to write about it and I haven’t been able to fathom why.

From my philosophy degree to my writing career, I’ve been a thinker, a conceptualiser and an explainer. The idea of me not having an opinion I want to expound on any topic in question is inconceivable, so why can I not think of anything I want to say about the biggest life change I’ve ever made?

I think I’ve finally made it to the bottom of the issue, so here goes:

Ten years ago, I was at the lowest weight I’d been in my adult life. I proudly bought a pair of Levis with guitar patterns imprinted on the legs and a 34-inch waist. They barely fit, but I intended to continue losing weight. I didn’t. In fact, I put it all back on and more.

Seven months ago, I was nearly ten stone overweight. My wife was changing her life on an extreme diet and she asked me to do it with her. I agreed, thinking I’d break after a week or so. I haven’t yet.

The diet isn’t healthy (I won’t pretend), but it’s less unhealthy than being morbidly obese. I won’t bore you with the details either, but suffice to say, a few breaks for holidays aside, I’ve not eaten real food in half a year.

“I put those jeans on for the first time in a decade”

That all became worth it last week when I put those jeans on for the first time in a decade. I’m wearing them as I write this. I still have to breathe in before doing up the top button, but otherwise, they’re actually a very tiny bit baggy.

All in all, I’m nearly eight stone lighter, with about two still to go, at least according to the NHS, and I’m officially now just “overweight”, rather than “obese”, “morbidly” or otherwise. I can’t say it’s been easy. In fact, it’s been almost unbearably miserable. There are times when I would have given everything I had for a single mouthful of pizza without consequences, but actually, that’s not the main problem.

Food is an integral part of every aspect of life. Rough day? Get a takeaway. Dumped? Eat ice cream. Starting to flag on a long day out? Take a break for coffee and cake. Someone’s birthday? Go for a meal.

“We bond through mutual gluttony, so self denial leaves you a pariah.”

We celebrate, commiserate and recharge with food. Without it, you’re alone. No drinks with friends. No cheeky Nandos on a Friday night. No family meals. No shared popcorn while watching a movie. No takeaways. No birthday cake. No dinner parties. No toasts. No hangover fry-up. No splitting a sandwich. We bond through mutual gluttony, so self denial leaves you a pariah.

I get through this by reminding myself that I’ve spent most of my life getting more takeaways and treating myself to more doughnuts than the average person, over-over-indulging, and now I’m just balancing the books. It’s like I’m in credit card debt. I’ve spent more than I had and now it’s time to cut down until I’ve paid it off.

I keep telling myself that there is no way in hell I am putting in all of this work just to end up back where I was, but guess what? Remember when I first bought those jeans ten years ago? Yeah, I was on a very similar diet then.

Once you’ve been fat, your metabolism is messed up. You have deflated fat cells ready to puff back up the second you catch a whiff of a carb. It’s so easy to fall straight back into old patterns and your old ways of coping. In the same way addicts kick their habits for years at a time and one bad day can still bring them back there, you have to be constantly vigilant with food for the rest of your life, because, make no mistake, food is a drug, just one we’re all getting high on.

Painkillers have a purpose, but if you start taking them when you’re not in pain, you’re an addict. Food keeps us alive, but if you start eating when you aren’t hungry, you have a problem, and can you honestly say you’ve never eaten more than you needed to stay alive? Everyone has, just some are addicted enough to really screw their bodies over for the sake of a fix.

“Food is a drug, just one we’re all getting high on”

The really tricky part, however, is that you can’t go cold turkey from food. Putting a fat person on a diet is like asking an alcoholic to just have one shot of tequila every morning and no more. The closest thing to giving up you can get is what I’m doing — low-calorie, low-carb meal replacements instead of food. Then, of course, the hard part is going back to normal after. Hey, you’ve gone cold turkey and kicked the addiction, now go back to shooting up - just do it in moderation!

Still, for now, I’m deliriously happy. I’m in those jeans. I’m clambering over climbing frames and soft-play assault courses with my son. I’m jogging. My wife keeps calling me “hot”. People I barely know burst out with “Wow! You’ve lost so much weight. You look amazing. Well done!” It’s everything I ever wanted, but for some reason, I feel enormously awkward about it.

I post before-and-after pics on Facebook and revel in the likes, but it’s more to avoid the awkwardness of doing it in person than anything else. In fact, I’d be far happier to neuralize everyone out of ever knowing I was fat and carry on invisibly. I didn’t even tell people I was dieting until I couldn’t get away with it any longer.

I could claim I don’t want the attention; that I really wanted to improve my health or that I was just sick of clothes not fitting, but I’m fairly certain that, if I didn’t care what people thought, I’d still be fat. I lost weight for the approval of others, so surely I should be happy that people have noticed? I think the simple truth is that I can’t get over how horribly wrong it is that it makes SO much difference.

I’m a friendly chap, I smile at people and hold doors open, but when you’re fat, the normal reaction is something like Threepio in Jabba’s Palace, “Oh! How Horrid!” People seem to believe that fat is infectious and will do anything to avoid overweight people.

Nowadays, however, people smile back; they hold doors open for me; they want to chat to me; I even get women appreciatively looking me up and down on occasion and every time I feel like I’m a more-accepted member of the human race just because I’m lighter, I want to change species.

“Then there are the others…”

I’m sure I’m being too harsh. I know most of the people complimenting me are genuinely impressed by what I’ve done with no ulterior motive…

…then there are the other people…

The ones who tell me I’m looking “gaunt” and that I should be careful not to lose too much weight; or the ones who give me unsolicited advice about how to keep the weight off. It’s like someone who’s never taken heroin trying to tell a junkie how they’ve managed to stay clean all their lives. Both groups are essentially saying “hey, fatty, don’t get ideas above your station”.

Still worse than all of that is the friends I’ve lost. The supportive people who suddenly seem to have pulled away as the pounds popped off. That “hey, you’re thin” conversation has been the end of a few friendships; no arguments, just one day mates, the next day just acquaintances. It’s as if what these people got out of me was the validation of knowing that, no matter what went wrong in their lives, at least they weren’t as fat as I was.

Talking about this usually provokes a sort of ‘not ALL thin people’ reaction. It’s probably justified. I’m sure most people don’t think like that, as I said, but that’s very much how it feels. I don’t want to open up about my weight loss and accept people’s praise, because I don’t trust it; I don’t trust them - a lifetime of being judged for your weight will do that to a person.

This may sound disturbingly bleak, but I’ve spent a long time training myself not to give a crap that people have opinions about my size. My wife and I have both been overweight and bullied for it our entire lives and I’ve become fiercely protective of our weight, so getting thinner also means abandoning that political position. It’s like being a gay rights activist until you check into a Pray Away The Gay camp.

Tess Holliday is an internationally-famous model and a size 22. She’s stunning, sexy and merrily skips through her life flipping the bird at anyone who has a problem with her weight. She’s a truly-heroic, inspirational person, and I’m a coward. I feel like I should have stayed the same size and not given a damn what anyone thought about it; that my losing weight is an admission that all the people who’ve ever mocked my size were right and being fat wasn’t ever really a valid choice I made, just a horrible disease I needed to be cured of.

“The number on your scale shouldn’t make the slightest difference to your value as a person”

I wish I didn’t feel that way. It shouldn’t be a matter of what weight is best, fat or thin. The whole point people like Tess Holliday are making is that it’s no-one’s business how much anyone weighs and that number on your scale shouldn’t make the slightest difference to your value as a person.

This is all just skimming the surface of a very, very deep puddle of crap. I have a lifetime of insights and anecdotes about just how awfully human beings treat fatter human beings, but like I said: I don’t really want to talk about it. The only reason I am is that, as a writer, I felt it was important for my art to put something about this out there and also for the people who seem to be benefitting from it.

I can count at least ten people I know who’ve started dieting since they saw what I’m accomplishing and most of them are doing spectacularly. I’m glad I inspired them, but I don’t want to encourage people to do what I’m doing. If you want to lose weight, start working at it until you have and never give up; if you’re quite happy on the couch eating doughnuts, then don’t drop a pound and kick anyone in the crotch for me if they say different.

However, as to me, I’m already sick of talking about my weight. I don’t want to brag about it, because I’m not proud of it. It was hard, but it would have been much braver to stay the weight I was and stop giving a damn if anyone had an issue with it. It’s still a big deal for me, but I don’t want to write about losing weight, because I’m too busy doing it. For once in my life, I’m really happy and I’m just going to enjoy that with my family instead of picking it apart.