Less of a Man
All of my life, one of the most naïve ideas I had was that one day I would wake up and decide to start taking care of myself. It was, therefore, rather surprising to me when that is exactly what happened. The choice came about following the weekend of Chinese New Year where, according to tradition, house guests are fed candy until they damn near explode. The two-day food coma that resulted made me feel that I had enough of being the size that I was, and I resolved to change that.
I had been reticent to discuss this topic because I felt that it would seem odd to hear me say that, but it turned out that most people were quite positive about my decision, probably because I'd never really tried to lose weight before, so I'd never cried "wolf" on the topic. I needed to change the way I ate and the way that I lived, and I steeled myself for a difficult and demanding process and found to my surprise that the changes were actually pretty easy to implement.
The dietary changes didn't bother me too much at all because it isn't like there isn't a lot of food that is perfectly good for you that doesn't taste good. Furthermore, my budget for food has gone way down now that I'm purchasing less pre-prepared foods and very rarely ordering out. And yes, it is rather nice to be able to tailor what you eat for your individual tastes (it's amazing what you can do with spinach, for example). It is also nice to be able to have food in my apartment which in the past I couldn't really keep because if I had it, I'd eat it.
And for exercise, I started power-walking… that was interesting.
I had never exercised before. Ever. I had always figured that if you exercised you would get tired the way I would when I exerted myself. I had no idea at how much energy one could have if one exercises regularly, nor how good the exercise itself feels when one gets in the zone. It turns out that exercise isn't something I have to suffer through, it's something I actually rather enjoy. Plus I get to listen to loud, bombastic music while doing it, which is something I probably would have been doing anyway.
I have lost over fifty pounds since mid-February. In addition to my appearance being drastically improved, I am also finding myself with the ability to get a lot more done over the course of the day. I didn't realize how many aspects of my life were being dragged down by my weight until there wasn't so much of it to drag me down.
Oh, and I like pineapple now too.