How I lost 39 kilograms and what I realized at the same time

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Chris Higgins, blogger and author of articles for This American Life, Mental Floss, The Atlantic and The Magazine, on how he lost weight. A year and a half ago, he weighed 133 kilograms and was seriously afraid of dying due to obesity.

A year and a half ago, I received an assignment from the editorial office - to study whether a sedentary lifestyle is really as dangerous for a person as smoking. I began to read research results, interviews with doctors, and delved deeper into science.

Immersed in materials about obesity, sedentary lifestyle, cancer and death, I caught myself thinking that I myself weigh 133 kilograms, and my job is that I sit and type all day. The realization of this laid a heavy burden on my shoulders. I realized that I needed to do something.

The first step was what I had done many times already - I signed up for a gym. But this time I chose classes with an individual trainer.

When Izzy Barth Fromm first met me, she asked me what my goal was. I answered something vague like "lose weight" and "feel better." She clarified: "What exactly do you mean by feeling better?" I said, "I want to fit in an airplane seat." I hated airplane seats. Hated not to fit into them. I hated rubbing my elbows on neighbors, trying to shrink and become small. She nodded and we got to work.

It was difficult at first. Then it became fun.

For the first time, I felt that I could easily fit into an airplane seat, about six months after starting training. Now I have lost 39 kg, lost 38 cm at the waist, 30 cm at the chest and 28 cm at the hips. Airplane seats are still ugly, but they no longer make me feel terrible. This is great.

I decided to write about what I realized over the past year. I hope my experience is useful to someone.

I needed a person to whom I would be controlled

Izzy is my personal trainer. She teaches me how to work in the gym, what a plank is (seriously, a year ago I didn't know about it), how to lift weights without hurting myself. She also gives advice on proper nutrition. But her most important role is that she is my voice of conscience.

I am extremely result oriented and passionate about deadlines. If I am given a deadline and expected to complete a task within that time, I will do my best. It took me several decades to learn how to apply this approach not only in work, but also in relation to my health. I had to hire someone to whom I would feel responsible and who would push me towards my goal. Until last year, I didn’t realize that a deadline in health is as important as it is in work. I'm glad I finally came to this.

I was silent about this for a year and a half

I make a living writing articles on the internet and for magazines. But over the past 18 months, literally before this very article, I did not say a word with the readers about what was happening in my life.

All this time, I tried to eat right and give priority to health, not work. I also tried not to light up in photographs that could be posted on the Web, and did not discuss my classes in the simulator. I was afraid to jinx it. I decided that I would wait at least a year (then I added another six months) before I began to discuss this publicly. And here I am.

Losing kilograms, I hardly noticed external changes

After losing the first 18 kilograms, my clothes became too big for me. She fell off me. In the basement, I kept clothes for “what if I’d lose weight”: things that I hoped to wear again one day. I took them out, started wearing them, and soon they also began to fall off me.

But the harsh truth is that, although I knew with my mind that my body was changing, there was nothing new in the mirror for a long time. Only 12 months later I saw my reflection and thought: "Looks like I threw off a little?"

I'm still not sure if I look better. It probably takes time for my brain to get used to my new body. Call it dysmorphobia or something else, but I really find it difficult to objectively assess my appearance. I had to buy five new belts last year (and a hole punch to add holes on the last one).

Month after month, even year after year, I could not pick up on the visual changes in my body. So I weigh myself and take measurements. It is easier for others to notice the changes in me than to myself. All I can do is set goals in kilograms and centimeters and walk towards them.

When you lose a lot of weight, people start to make weird speculations

A few months ago, a woman came up to me in the gym and asked how I managed to lose so much weight. My answer was trite: "Diet and exercise." She said, “Oh! Liquid diet? " She puzzled me: “No, I'm just eating healthier foods. Salads, not semi-finished products."

A friend told me last week, "If I didn't know you were going to the gym, I would have thought you were sick with something." Sounds pretty dark, but it's actually a compliment that impressed me. This means that the changes are really visible.

You need to trust someone else's opinion: from the outside you really know better. Quite frankly, previous attempts to lose weight have failed in large part because I didn't have a wife to tell me how I was doing.

Refusing junk food and drinking too much can make it difficult for you to communicate

It turns out that a lot of my social activities involved eating and drinking. We live in a world where communication often takes place over dinner and a glass of beer.

Therefore, the sad truth is that many losing weight find it easier to refuse meetings than to adapt. Better to stay at home than to go to a bar with a friend and be tempted. Previously, I, too, would rather eat and drink enough than sit all evening with mineral water. But fortunately, I've largely learned to control my food and drink intake without compromising socialization.

I couldn't have done it without my wife's support

When I went to the gym and hired Izzy, my wife Rochelle was on a business trip. Upon her return, Ro accepted the change calmly.

Moreover, she also signed up for the simulator and is now even ahead of me in losing weight and in achieving other fitness goals. It was not part of my plans, but it is a pleasant surprise.

I don't think I could have done it without her help. Probably, I would not have lost weight if I had not been married and stayed alone in the evenings with food.

I have no idea how to talk about it

It's difficult. I don’t know how to tell my friends, family and even strangers my “weight loss story” and not look like a jerk. “Hey, look at me, I lost a lot of kilograms,” - bragging, and only.

Before this article, I did not mention on the Internet that I was losing weight. Generally. But now I feel that I have to tell about it. I decided to lose weight because I was seriously afraid of dying due to obesity. Now this worries me much less, since I have progress. And I sincerely hope that after reading this article, a thirty-year-old guy like me, of average height and weighing more than a centner, will understand that he can change and this will benefit him.

The magic formula for losing weight turned out to be extremely simple for me: a rational diet and a consistent training system. Yes, I also watched a reality show about fitness. But none of them helped me lose weight. A personal trainer helped me.

P. S. There are no before and after photos in this post, where I hold my huge pants with a big smile on my face. Putting such photos in the public domain is like doing porn for me. But now I actually buy jeans in a regular store and not in the large sections.