Heavy Duty Milestones

While watching the Biggest Loser today I was inspired by the young chubby kid from the orange team with the super nappy white fro to make a blog entry. He spent a few moments talking about how he reacted when he learn he was over 300 lbs. for the first time. Of course as soon as I got the gist of what he was going to be talking about my mind stopped paying attention to him and wandered back to me and how I felt the fist time I learned I was over 300 lbs. After all...I am...me.



300 lbs.

Unlike orange fro guy I learned I was over 300 lbs for the first time in jr. high. My closest frenemy Jeff Van Hoose and I were clearly the two fattest kids in school. Im not sure what caused us to challenge one another to a weigh off but I suspect it was one of our classic passive aggressive jabs at proving I was better than him. Ohh, or the other way around. I went first. I stepped on the bathroom scale and it read 301 lbs. Holy Hound Dog! Seriously? Christ on a cracker, how could this be. I literally hopped off the scale looking over at a very smug and smirking Jeff Van Hoose. It was now his turn to step up onto this hash mistress of truth. 316 lbs. OMG! I knew it! I knew he was fatter than me. Who's smirking now Bitch! My shock of weighing 301 lbs was completely assuaged by the fact good ole Jeffy was fatter. I'd like to say im ashamed of my reaction but that's the way the cookie crumbled...what was left of it that is.



400 lbs.

It took me from 7th grade (13) until I was 28 to pack on another 100 lbs. My galpal Cody and I decided we were going to visit the good folks down at Weight Watchers. I should probably mention that the final straw on the back of this camel of motivation was a visit we made to the White Castle drive-thru the night before. The equation went a little like this, 2 chubby folk + 1 Ford Taurus + $20.05 at the White Castle drive-thru = shame, regret, and a promise to go to Weight Watchers in lieu of what would have been an inevitable screamy meamy that would most likely have required medical attention. Cody weighed in, the WW gal smiled politely wrote down the numbers in Cody's little diary. Cody stepped aside and I stepped up on the scale. The scale read "error". The WW gal was so confused. She quickly gave me the that reassuring, this will be just be a minute finger, and called one of the more veteran WW mavens over to give this "error" a good lookin' in to. Rita (or whatever her name was, I generally assign the name Rita to ladies with that deep guttural raspy voice who obviously lost their weight by taking up smoking 2 packs a day.) whispered a few words into our WW gals ear obviously giving her guidance as to the "error". "could you come down here" nice, gentle WW gal fragily asked as she pointed over to the end of the counter. I stepped down to see Rita pulling out this much bigger scale and blowing dust from it. She sat it on the floor, plugged it in, and hastily adjusted a small electronic readout device. I guess they had a special scale for distinguished lard asses like myself that exceeded the delicate limits of the regular scales. I stepped up and weighed. After some slight eye bulging by both nice gal and Rita, nice gal wrote down my weight in my diary and passed it over to me. 422 lbs. Hmmmm. Oh well, so i've gained 100 ish pounds in the past 15 years. Oh well. It was also in this time period I discovered the whole chub and chaser community and at 422 lbs, I was this community's star.



500 lbs.

I had been living in New Hampshire a few years. I think I was probably 31 or maybe 32. My chubby galpal Will and I decided to go on the Atkins diet. The one obstacle we needed to overcome to initiate this event was a weigh in. I immediately thought of Weight Watchers and Rita's relic scale for the super fat folk. Maybe they had one here in NH. A quick call later and I had my answer and out big Atkins debut was going to start once we went to WW and weighed in. We got to WW where our consultant Marian met us with eager delight and with what actually seemed to be a sincere desire to help. No need for her to dust off the big boy scale because she had it all ready to go. I stepped up and the scale spit out 538 lbs. I honestly have no idea why I had no reaction of shame or moral outrage. I was excited to try this Atkins diet everyone was raging about but in all sincere honestly it didn't seem to make a huge impact on me mentally. I was still receiving so much attention from guys. I felt...well...okay physically, and I though I looked great. Will and I did Start the Atkins diet for exactly one week. Jump starting each day with a few pounds of bacon and eating endless amounts of lunch meant and cheese produced an actual 4 lb weight loss for both of us during our wonderous week. It took about 10 minutes after weighing in that we both had a butt shit crazy screamy meamy break down for carbs. The last thing I remembered about the Adkins diet was Will stirring in his third can of corn into a punch bowl of mashed potatoes saying "ooooh gurrl, try some of this!!"

600 lbs. (yeah that's right 600 lbs.)

Life seemed more fucked up than ever. I was now 38 and had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, moved to France to battle it, was announced to be in remission, teetered on the edge of a broken relationship, felt like shit physically and emotionally, but my skin looked great. I decided on my birthday that year to really begin to make something of this second chance on life I had been given. Right away I started dieting and exercising. A few months later I would be going to America to break the yolk of this new grand plan I had just hatched. I needed to know exactly what I weighed so Cody, her mom Michele, and I headed to a familiar old weigh in haunt they knew in the basement of Alton Memorial hospital's laundry department. I stepped on the this huge scale and waited for the needle to move. Unbeknown to me this particular scale had been outfitted with a digital read out, so it took Cody nudging me and pointing to the left where I could read in bold red numbers 603lbs. I don't remember what happened next because I was too numb. We pulled up in Cody's driveway and Michele got out and went inside as she was on her cell phone. At this moment the normal reaction of having gained so much weight that I had managed to evade my whole life hit me with full and complete splendor. Official breakdown commenced. I cried, I bawled, I pleaded to find reason not to call it a life and give up. Fuck! I could loose 400 lbs and still technically be overweight. What the fuck?!?!? Why did this just now all seem so wrong? Who can move this mountain? I could not remember a time in recent memory that I just wanted to lay down and never wake up. This is when Cody chimed in. She said a lot of the normal motivational mumbo jumbo we've all heard, but what she said that made a defining difference in that moment was remarkable. She grabbed my arm, looked in the face, and said "I can feel it in my bones that this is NOT our time to say good bye. we both have so much more to do with our lives, and YOU are the only person I know who can do this".

### lbs.

I'm scared. I'm actually frightened about my future, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I was meant for more out of this life. Ive already defied the odds in the grandest of ways possible and I will again. This is not my wishful imagination rearing it's usual head, rather my intelligent, practical self speaking. I have amazing friends and family that truly love and support me. Most importantly....I have a plan.