I remember when I was a young boy asking my father what a ton was. At the time, he drove a Ford Fairmont. He told me that a ton was a measure of weight, equal to 2,000 pounds. As a reference point, he explained to me that his car weighed about 1.5 tons. To an analytical kid, that comparison stuck with me through life, and would come back to haunt me many years later.
As an adult, I have suffered from weight problems ever since I stopped smoking in 1992. I gained about 100lbs within the first year of quitting, and I have fluctuated up and down since then. I know I am not just fighting the need to eat correctly, and exercise, but I am also fighting bad genetics – as both of my parents had weight issues.
In July, when Jackson was born, I knew that I wanted to watch him grow up, and more importantly for him to not lose his dad early in life like I did. I knew this before, but my personality requires triggers to start me down a path. For me, holding him that first time on August 3, 2011, as he came off the cold blanket therapy was the trigger I needed.
I started thinking about the things I had done in the past to lose weight, which were always successful, but not sustainable. I knew I had to change my lifestyle. I had to change the daily routine that I had forged over the last ten years. I’m a creature of habit, and I “suffer” from obsessive-compulsive disorder, so I knew that this was going to be a challenge – one that I was up to though.
As the fall progressed, I started making small changes that were making impacts, but still not enough. I sought out a referral for a dietitian. My first appointment was in early December. I enjoyed the appointment, and received a lot of good information to help me in the changes I made. One of the big things that was discussed that day is you can’t eliminate everything from your diet. Moderation, and awareness, is how you sustain a healthy diet.
Note: One of the tools I received that day was a booklet from CalorieKing that identifies all the major restaraunts menu items, so you can pick with knowledge when eating out. Since then, I found a CalorieKing app for the iPad. It has every restaurant that I have ever heard of in it. It is an excellent way to stay informed when eating on the go. I highly recommend it.
The second appointment was just before Christmas. I had made good progress, but it was hard to put numbers to the success, because I didn’t have access to a scale that would read me. (That is just one of the things fat people have to deal with. When we walk into a room, is there a chair that we will fit in? When dining, is there a table, because a booth won’t work. These are things every fat person has to be aware of.) We set a follow up appointment for late February, to give time for the scale to arrive, and see some progress before we spoke again.
The scale arrived on Thursday, December 22. This was the single most shocking day of my life. I stepped on the scale, and it told me I weighed 513.2 lbs. Yes, one man weighed more than 500 lbs. It was disturbing on a level that I cannot describe, especially knowing that I had already lost enough weight that my pants were falling off. I knew I was the biggest I had ever been, but to cross that threshold was just astonishing. The very first thought in my head was that I weighed a quarter of a ton – I was on a comparable scale with a car my father owned when I was a kid.
The next thought in my head was how to fix it. Another lesson my father taught me was that when all else fails, take a hammer to it. Destroy it, and start over. Sometimes, rebuilding from the ground up is what is needed. In the spirit of this lesson, I have named my blog Quarter-Ton Hammer – because that is what it is going to take to change my life.
