I'm the crazy one?

Since starting Weight Watchers and my exercising routine I have often had people ask me why I decided to lose weight and sometimes almost try to talk me out of doing it. There have been many people who have supported me (even many strangers have offered encouragement) but what I really want to talk about is the negative attitudes I've seen around weight-loss.  Some of the things I've heard are:

"This one meal wouldn't hurt"

"You can't eat anything can you?"

"You're married, why do you need to lose weight?"

I was one of three heavyweights in my office, I wasn't the biggest but the best way I can sum up how big I was is that I broke a couple chairs before they decided to give me a chair with a higher weight rating.  That is one of my motivators. Another would be that I have a very thin, fit, beautiful wife who I had a hard time keeping up with because of our physical fitness level disparity. It would also to be fair to say that the mirror has motivated me quite a bit.

So let me answer the statements that I listed above just in case there's someone in your life like me who has an answer but it's often hard to understand us.

This one meal wouldn't hurt

For starters, it's internal voices that tell us things like that, that helped us pack on the weight. These sort of self destructive thoughts snowball into many bad meals. The truth is one meal doesn't hurt but it has to be one I choose, one I control, and the BBQ spread at work isn't something that fits into my plan. For starters I don't have any of the calorie, fat, fiber information so I can't easily figure out how many points I'm going to be eating. Another downside is that because I'm guessing, I have to assume on the high end of things which means I'll be eating less than if I just have a healthy meal that I planned out.

You can't eat anything can you?

Actually I can! But now my choices aren't base solely on taste. What makes me happy to eat something now is that it tastes good, and it's good for me. Every now and then I'll have a greasy pizza or something fried but those are much fewer and far between, and I feel better on many levels for it.

You're married, why do you need to lose weight?

What does being married have to do with it? I need to lose weight to feel better, feel better about how I look, and do the things I want to do in life. My wife wants me to lose weight but she's been nothing but supportive, never pressuring me into this. But I don't remember in our wedding vows anywhere that either one of us stated that we'd grow fat together. Losing weight is like quitting smoking in that you have to decide it's time for you.

So let me tell you some of the inspiring things I've heard, I feel they don't need an explanation.

"You're looking very thin, I can see it in your face"

"I've been watching you exercise for weeks and you've lost a lot of weight, keep up the good work"

"Hey....You're disappearing!"

I'm down 65 lbs

I'm down to 40 waist size from 54

I'm Running an 8K race in november and when I started I could barely finish a mile