I spent most of my time from childhood through early
college overweight to the point that I just resigned it as my fate. Eventually, I decided one day to get rid of
the weight. It was actually a very
simple decision, not one that I thought about long and hard or had to work up
courage for. I was sitting on the couch
one day and had the exact internal dialogue “Hey, I think I’ll start losing
weight today”. I immediately started
making the effort with my next meal. Now
I’m 130 lbs. lighter. There is no
shortage of diet advice flooding the world, but I never heard a lot from people
that had lost weight on some of the most unexpected results of weight
loss. Everyone talks about the
self-esteem, energy, and overall health they gain and but hardly anyone talks
about the negative side-effects of weight loss.
1. If You're a
Man Trying to Eat Healthy, Men Will Take Shots at Your Masculinity
What’s
the first thing you think of when you think of a manly man? Chances are it
isn’t that guy going up to the salad bar for his third plate of lettuce with
fat-free dressing or uttering phrases like “I think I just added too much water
to the quinoa”. One of the most
unexpected things I noticed when eating healthier during and after losing
weight was the way guys would chuckle at my food choices at restaurants. While they’re ordering burgers and fries, I’m
ordering grilled chicken with cottage cheese.
The
cultural definition of what is manly seems to be based on tired old
stereotypes; the same stereotypes that insist that all men want tools for
Father’s Day and refuse to ever ask for directions. Basically, a lot of people think all men
should fit the character profile of a 90s sitcom dad. Regardless, it's still difficult to convince
anyone that your food has nothing to do with how much of a man you are. It should be about taking care of your body,
not your gender. I was once called a wuss
for cutting a donut into a fourth, just to get a taste without all of the extra
sugar. If that’s the type of thing that
makes you a wuss, I’m really glad that guy doesn’t know how many Lifetime
movies I watch a week while wearing a Snuggie.
If the amount of fat and grease your body can consume without your colon
starting an uprising against you was the measure of manhood, than those guys
that win the hot dog eating contests every July 4 make me look like one of
those portraits of a baby wearing a strawberry costume.
2. Buying Clothes Will Get Expensive
It’s pretty obvious that after dropping any sizeable
amount of weight that your clothes will no longer fit. Buying a new wardrobe when you lose weight
will get really expensive, since everything from shirts to belts to underwear
will need replacements.
When you’re halfway to your goal, you’ll still have
to buy clothes to fit, which will soon be too big as well. You will go through awkward phases where
everything will be slightly too big on you.
Usually my pants were sagging as I went through my weight loss. This was never by choice; it was only because
they were constantly too big on me. I
was forced to only own two pair of jeans at a time since my weight was changing
so quickly.
3. Your Body Will Be Completely Different—Not
Always in a Good Way
You'll
have extra skin and stretch marks that won't go away. My body still pays for the mistakes I made
when I was younger. You just have to learn to live with it unless you have
thousands to spend on plastic surgery. I
take off my shirt and see the flat abs I would have never dreamed of 10 years
ago. Just below that is a fold of skin
that, to the untrained eye, looks like flab.
Even after all of the hard work, I still won’t take of my shirt in
public because of it. Sometimes when I am jogging it will bounce a bit and
create the illusion of flab.
To
date, eating greasy food makes me physically ill. There was a time when I would go to Burger
King, order a combo meal, and eat it--for a snack. Too much grease--now, and my entire gut wants
to kill me from the inside out.
4. You'll still “Think Fat” For a While
It seems that going from fat to thin is an instant ticket
to confidence. It’s not. When you spend so much of your life staring
at a certain image in the mirror, it becomes ingrained in your psyche. “I’m not good enough, “I can't get
women", or "that's only something that thin people can do/wear"
becomes your default way of thinking.
The negative thought patterns and low self-confidence stick around.
You find yourself thinking these types of thoughts before
you even realize that you're thin. For two years after losing weight, I would
see a female looking at me I still automatically assumed I just looked
familiar, she was looking at someone behind me, or just thought I was so ugly
she was mesmerized.
5. Keeping it off is a Constant Battle and
You Have to Make Permanent Behavior Changes
I lost a sizeable amount of weight once when I was about
twelve, and by junior year of high school had gained it all back. It's similar to a drug addict that quit
using. In this case the addiction was
bad food and is available at every corner, is legal, and can be delivered. Eventually you’ll have to shake “I’m really
tired, I’ll just go to….(insert fast food restaurant here)” as a default
thought.
I realized how much I ate out of boredom and had to
change behaviors. Losing weight is a
matter of changing behaviors permanently and incorporating them into a way of
life. To do this you have to figure out
what made you eat unnecessarily in the first place, and address those
behaviors. Making permanent changes
isn’t a matter of depriving yourself of all of your vices, it’s simply a matter
of learning how to enjoy them in moderation and exert self-control. Self-control is a simple concept, but one
that’s very difficult to master. Once
you’re in control of yourself, you will be surprised at what you can
accomplish.
6. You're going to look like a Snob Sometimes
A lot of social situations revolve around food,
especially around the holidays. This
means having to turn down well-intentioned invitations to pizza restaurants or
refusing cake from your grandmother. The time you used to spend doing nothing
is now spent going to the gym or working out, so it cuts into your social
life. "Sorry, I have to go to the
gym" as a response to "Hey, we're all getting drinks after work"
can be interpreted as pretentious and elitist to some people that have never
been in your situation. Chances are,
they’re jealous and wish they had similar motivation. The concept of motivation never crosses my
mind. Workouts are just something I
do.
7. Unsolicited advice
Most
diet advice you're going to hear is bogus.
There are tons of diets in existence.
The truth is that most don’t work.
They’re mostly used for selling books and meals in the frozen food
section. They teach you to stick to a
plan and rely on it, but don’t teach you how to actually keep the weight off
and can lead to weight gain in the future.
Everyone has their own theories, own diet fads, and knows somebody that
lost weight doing something strange.
Some
"diets" are outright dangerous and aren't really diets at all. Of course, everyone has their own opinion and
knows somebody that knows somebody that swears by it.
8. People Will Constantly Ask for Diet
Advice--And It Gets Annoying
When
somebody asks “How did you do it?” it’s complimentary at first. It’s a validation that you’ve accomplished
something that not everybody has been able to do and you’ve inspired
someone. Rarely does the inspiration
turn into anything more. In reality,
they are hoping you’re a wizard with a magical elixir. There are no shortcuts. It takes hard work, sacrifice, and doing
without. There is a reason you don’t
read these things in diet books. Nobody
will spend money to be told how hard they will have to work. They want a quick fix and a shortcut.
The
truth is that you can't force anyone to do anything.
