What happens when this scene does occur, but you still can't see it?

Whereas the last entry of this type focused on all of these unworn jeans in my closet, this entry is going to focus on what I see when I look at myself in the mirror. First, some history…

I’ve mentioned many, many times on this blog that I once lost 125 pounds before gaining some 105 pounds back. While I’m not going to rehash that story, I do want to comment on my perception of reality during that time. Specifically, even though I lost 125 pounds and I was getting compliments from everyone I knew and everywhere I went, I didn’t see much of a change in the mirror. Now, before you go and think that I have some type of body dysmorphic disorder (look it up), I certainly knew that I looked different and I definitely knew that my body was a different shape at 260 pounds versus at 385 pounds.

However, for better or for worse, whenever I looked in the mirror I just saw… me.

Was my stomach smaller? I guess so. Were my arms and chest more defined because of the intense lifting that I was engaged in? More or less, I guess. Did I see the same changed person that everyone else saw when they looked at me? Nope.

Maybe it was because I’m a pretty strong-minded person and I knew that even though my body changed, I was still “me.” You see, society seems to think that if you lose a lot of weight and your appearance changes dramatically, then you must be a “new” person. This weird cause and effect is played out in the media and in popular television shows (it’s actually the core root of NBC’s The Biggest Loser). Yet, becoming a “new” person was never my motivation to lose weight when I dropped 125 pounds and it’s not my motivation as I lose weight this time around.

That’s probably enough background, but feel free to ask for more if you’re interested. Now some more present day comments on this topic…

I decided to write this entry because yesterday I hit a pretty big milestone in my current weight loss efforts. Yesterday, I weighed in at 314.6 pounds, which is 50.4 pounds less than when I started losing weight at the beginning of the summer. That’s pretty damn good!

Just like when I lost all of that weight last time around, I’m doing the same things this time around – eating less and working out more. That’s the big “secret” to weight loss. It really is the secret!

And, just like last time around, I’m not “seeing” much of a difference in the mirror. However, because I was aware enough at the beginning of the summer to know that my eye-to-mind connection would lie to me again about what I was “seeing,” I took a measure to prevent myself from believing (disbelieving?) what my eyes saw in the mirror.

I took pictures of myself.

No, you’re not going to see those pictures on this website so don’t ask. However, I glance through the pictures every once in a while to get a view of the pre-weight loss version of my body versus the current version of my body. And truth be told, there is a striking, noticeable difference between the picture of me at 354.6 pounds (after already losing 10.4 pounds is when I started taking the pictures) and the picture of me at 335.0 pounds… but that’s about it as far as my eyes can “see.” I’ve also taken pictures of myself at 330.4 pounds and 326.8 pounds; I have yet to take some pictures of myself at my current 314.6 pounds.

However, here’s the thing – I don’t see a difference in the pictures between 335.0 pounds and 326.8 pounds.

Is there a difference? Well, there would have to be, right? I mean you don’t weigh 8.2 pounds less than you did a week or two prior and not look different. Yet, I don’t see it in the pictures. Sure, maybe I’ll see the difference in the 314.6 pound pictures, but I don’t see the change now.

And that’s the root of this entry because I’m finding it pretty hard to get as excited as I should be about losing the 50 pounds so far. Most folks would be jumping up and down for joy after losing that much weight and while I’m glad about it, I’m not ecstatic about the 50 pound drop. Part of me believes that I’m not excited because, frankly, I’ve been here before. In fact, I’ve gone another 54.6 pounds down this road and will likely retrace those very same steps in the next 6 months. But I’m just not overly elated at what I’m seeing in the mirror.

The analyst in me thinks that I need to heed the title of this entry and see the bigger picture in the physically smaller pictures of my body. In other words, I think that part of my problem is that I need to realize and begin to achieve the bigger picture items that come along with losing weight before my mind will allow me to see the physical benefit of losing the weight. What does that mean? Here’s an example: I go to the doctor again next Friday (second day of September). At that appointment, I will have hopefully lost a total of 55 pounds since I last saw the doctor. That’s an astounding amount of weight to lose. I think, however, in order for me to realize and achieve the bigger picture items that come from losing this weight, I’m going to need my doctor to lower the amount of my medications (currently at 10 pills and 1 shot each day).

I’m pretty confident that a development like that would begin to wrench open my mind’s eye so that it can see the smaller figure standing in the mirror.

The paragraph above is the end of this entry. Though, since this is a weight loss-themed entry, I thought I would add a few comments on my next goal and the longer-term goals that I have for losing weight. If you’re interested, read on…

The next goal is to drop below 300 pounds. As any big guy can tell you, when you’re losing weight that 300 pound figure looms above your efforts like a storm cloud waiting to burst. Once I break through that level and begin weighing something in the 290s, I’ll be content that this weight loss effort may actually have some longer-term legs. And on those longer-term legs, I’d like to carry myself to 275 pounds by the middle of October – in time for my older brother’s wedding. Again, as any big guy losing weight can tell you – once you breakthrough beneath the 300 pound level, 275 pounds doesn’t seem that far away (and it’s not in the grand scheme of things).

That’s about it in terms of my weight loss goals. Sure, one day I’d like to weigh around 230 pounds (I don’t know about going much lower than that weight, actually), but I’m in no great rush to get there. I could be very happy sitting at 275 pounds for a while just like I’m content taking small steps to get to that weight. If you’re interested in following this weight loss effort, stick around on JerseySmarts.com because I plan to chronicle as much of my thoughts and experiences as I can during this journey. It should be interesting.

For example, I once weighed 385 pounds and then lost 125 pounds to settle at 260 pounds. After a while, I wound up gaining back around 100 pounds. Not good. But to show you how sometimes fat people can be crazy, when I weighed 260 pounds I would look in the mirror and see every bit of the 385 pounds that I used to weigh. In fact, despite the nearly non-stop compliments that I was receiving on losing all of the weight, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I looked exactly the same as I did when I weighed 385 pounds. No doubt in my mind at all – even though I was completely wrong.

A huge stack of unworn jeans sitting in my closet

The point is that I understand the crazy thoughts that fat people have from time to time. And on that subject, I figured now would be as good a time as any to report to you all about my recent weight loss efforts and one of the positive outcomes of those efforts. I began a weight loss contest with both of my roommates at some point in June. The winner of the contest will get free rent for the month of September (a $587 value). The contest ends in 13 days and I’m in second place by a few percentage points.

Since the contest started, I’ve dropped about 42 pounds. That’s pretty significant. However, since I know from my previous experience that I’m prone to having crazy fat people thoughts, I started snapping pictures of myself (front shot and profile shot) in just my underwear at different weights. Unfortunately, I didn’t start at the 363.6 pounds that I weighed when the contest started (or the 365 pounds that I weighed a week before the contest started), but I did begin taking pictures somewhere around 356 pounds. Again, my purpose for taking these pictures is so that I can see for my own two eyes a “before and after” shot of my body before I began losing weight and after the weight has come off.

And wouldn’t you know it, but the pictures don’t lie. I can clearly see a marked decrease in the size of my torso between the 356 pound picture and the 321 pound picture. In essence, I’m trying to use these pictures to trick (or untrick, really) my brain into recognizing a difference when it looks in the mirror. I don’t know if it’s working yet, but I do know that I have picture proof of my body getting smaller.

Along with that picture proof has come a little bit of pride in losing the weight so I did something the other night that I haven’t done in a while – I took out pairs of jeans that I know I can’t fit into and tried them on. That’s the picture above – an entire stack of jeans (rotated sideways so it can fit in the JerseySmarts.com format). Now here’s where the craziness comes into play – most of those 20 or so pairs of jeans have never been worn! And when I say never been worn, I mean the tags are still on these things! That’s one of the crazy things that some fat people do – we buy things that don’t really fit because we know if we lose a little bit of weight then they’ll fit just fine.

Of course, most folks never really lose the weight and thus what they wind up with is either a huge stack of unworn clothing sitting in their closets like you see in the picture above or a huge stack of unworn clothing that they donate to charity (and ultimately get less of a tax benefit on a per dollar basis than if they just didn’t buy these things in the first place). And to wrap up this part of the conversation, I thought I’d let you know that while I did manage to fit into about 6 or 7 of those pairs of jeans, I put the rest of the stack back and will give it another round of testing after I drop another 20 pounds or so.

To finish up this entry, I thought I’d make a brief observation about what I’d “win” if I win the contest. Sure, I get to keep $587 at a time when I could use the extra funds (with my brother’s wedding coming up and his bachelor party, etc). However, even if I don’t win (and, in truth, my roommate’s lead will be tough to overcome), I am still going to reap a financial benefit. By losing weight, I’ll reduce the number of prescriptions that I need to take each day and thus reduce my medical bills. By losing weight, I’ll be able to fit into some of these jeans that are sitting in my closet that I haven’t been able to wear until now – that saves me money by not having to buy new clothes! So, even if I don’t win the contest, I’ll still reap a financial benefit – and that’s enough to make my crazy fat person thoughts dissipate for a little while!

The plane landed at Newark right on time at 12 midnight. From that point, I had to catch a train at 1:00am back to the Long Branch area where I live. My buddy and I grab out baggage from the carousel at about 12:30am I notice that the entire left wheel of my bag is missing PLUS the casing for the wheel is cracked and missing, too. Welcome back to New Jersey!

I dragged my bag over to the Continental Baggage Assistance area and told the woman behind the counter that my wheel was broken and it needed to be replaced or repaired. She said, “I don’t think we cover wheels.” To which I responded, “You’re covering something because I’m exhausted, tired, and I don’t want to get loud because you guys broke my bag.” The woman then waited for the manager to come out and after the manager affirmed that I was correct and Continental would repair the wheel, the woman began filling out my voucher.

Seeing that she was taking her time, I told the woman that we had a plane to catch in 15 minutes and she suggested that this process was going to take more than 15 minutes. Not too big of a problem – another train was supposedly coming at 2am. Of course this woman didn’t realize the complexity (or lack thereof) involved in her job because she was finished in 10 minutes. So my buddy and I go through the airport (me dragging my 50 pound bag) and we get to the place where you have to buy tickets for the train. After dropping $14.25 each for train tickets, we had to wait an unGodly amount of time for the AirTran system to take us from the airport to the RailLink where we could catch the 2:00am train.

At around 1:30am we finally make it to the RailLink station and before we can use our tickets to go through the little turnstyles, the woman asked us which train we were going on. I responded that we were headed for Long Branch to which she said the train already left. I told her that I knew, but we were hoping to catch the 2:00am train. At this point, the woman showed us on the train schedule that the 2:00am train only runs on Fridays and that the next train was coming at 4:45am.

For those of you that know me, you know that something clicked in my head after the woman told me this…

My buddy and I went back to the Continental counter (near 2:00am at this point) and a different woman behind the counter was complaining to no one about how tired she was. Really? She was tired? REALLY? Because I just got off a fucking plane from California where I was wedged in a seat next to some pompous prick who decided that about 15% of my seat belonged to him, found out that my bag was broken (and now it falls on ME to get it fixed), and that I missed my fucking train home because Continental broke my bag. YOU’RE FUCKING TIRED? You know what? Blow me, asshole. I’m fucking tired, not you.

The woman then says to me, “You’re still here complaining?” Being exhausted, I said to her that I now missed my train and Continental needs to find a way to get me home. She said that she didn’t have the authority to do anything about that so she told me to wait for the Manager to get back. Which I did… When the Manager came back I tried to wave him down and he walked by me. He came back a few minutes later and I tried to suggest to him that we need to talk and he didn’t even regard my presence. After about 10 minutes of him being the back room, he came out a third time at which point I said, “Hey! I was told to talk with you!” His response was nonexistent as he walked right by me without even flinching an eye.

Not wanting to act like a lunatic in the airport (those fuckers are lucky that there are extra security regulations now or I would have tackled that son of a bitch and screamed in his fucking face), my buddy and I went outside and caught a cab. After a $120 trip, we arrived at our cars at 3:00am. Fucking fantabulous.

I am in the midst of drafting a really biting e-mail to Continental asking why I should ever fly their airline again. They didn’t do a fucking thing for me and they even cost us an extra $120 to get home. How dare they!? Folks, for what it’s worth I advise you to stay away from Continental. Rude service, poor customer support representatives, and Manager who don’t give a crap about their clients.