h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello, Eric
I came across your entry from Kelli's page and was very inspired with both your weight loss (a huge well done) and guide entries. In particular the points you raised regarding missing "the old you" and why the success rate is less then 5% struck chords with me.
I lost 8stone a few years ago and have now put a large part of that back on again. When I was a size 8 I felt like exactly the same person i had always been. i had more energy, confidence and a zest for life that I had never experienced before, but same standards and values, likes dislikes, ambitions and fears and feelings that i had always had. What disturbed me was that friends, family and the populous at large responded to me in an entirely different way.The only way i can sum it up is that i felt as if I was being 'noticed' and couldn't hide behind anything anymore. While consciously I am aware that it must have been physically easier to blend into the background i felt naked, as if barrier was gone. I no longer felt safe. While I had been used to being stared at as a freak i wasn't used to being seen as a normal person. Furthermore when I was afraid to try new things or if someone took a dislike to me I couldn't blame it on the fat anyone....it was down to who i was and nothing else. Anyway I'm not saying that any of this is a reason to put weight back on, not going to the gym and eating more did that, but it has made me aware that losing weight is more than just getting rid of the pounds. Have you experienced anything similar? After all the weight you have lost is huge........essentially an entire person and to lose it so quickly must mean adapting to a new version of yourself every week. To bounce the question back into your court if i may, are there any aspects of the old you that you miss?
Fi

Famous Fi !

A BigHug from BigE. Thank you so much for writing to me. I have found what you said absolutely captivating and hugely interesting. I am afraid that right here and now I am absolutely as busy as hell and cannot seem to find the time to negotiate away from family commitments to really get my head around what you are saying.....

Er, it may sound a bit wierd (and most unlike me) but I'd really like to think about what you've said before launching into a reply.

But as for how I feel right now, it's very strange that I am getting a lot more attention than I did when I was impersonating the Michelin Man.... Even total strangers are walking up to me and saying "What has happened? How did you lose weight ? Are you the same guy I saw in the Post Office/Local shop a couple of months ago?, etc....

Far from enjoying this attention, I feel a bit as if I have been thrust into the limelight rather more than feels comfortable. The feedback I am getting is an exaggeration.... People are yelling "Hiya slim Jim!" across the golf course.... and I know (I still have eyes) that I am not yet even normal.... (I never aimed to be slim, just not a blimp.) So I feel as if I am under some collectively-enforced responsibility to succeed.

Now this is far from the anonymity I actually sought. So in a strange way, we do have things in common: we seem to be travelling to a less-comfortable place.... you to anonymity/insignificance, me to greater prominence/ higher profile!

Maybe we should swap psyches!

I will be back. (it's a promise not a threat) but right now I need a think.... and this heatwave does NOT encoutrage thought! Just perspiration. Thanks for being in contact. I sense we have a lot to learn from each other.

Big E X

Hi BigE,
Will make this brief as I can see you are inundated with fan mail!!!

I think we are both barking up the same tree with our respective psyches.I also find that the more weight I lose the higher my profile is, despite wishing to blend into the background. I am thinking of investing in a sumo suit or switching my current all-black wardrobe to camouflage gear! However I only got comments from friends and family, if total strangers are commenting on your weight loss then it must mean that you have radically altered your outward appearance as most folk won't risk passing comment for fear they get it wrong......not surprising really considering the weigh you have lost (almost a person when you think about it). Have you come across the 'doing of sums' reaction....... when someone mentally adds up what you have lost in order to calculate what weight you must have been at the start?
Anyway better go now as I promised you I wouldn't bleather long,
Love and hugs
Fi
x

Hello again, Fi

Sorry for the infrequent communication. I'm just back from visiting my younger daughter in her new flat in London... it was supposed to be a holiday, but somehow it worked out as an exhausting experience!

The idea of replacing your all-black outfits in your wardrobe has some inherent problems. I once designed some really superb camouflage-pattern swimming shorts. Now I can't seem to find them!

All right, it's an old joke, but then again, so am I.

London and cars really don't love each other any more and parking at any price has become quite a test of ingenuity. Once you do find a suitable free spot, you are very reluctant to risk losing it. So if you can, you leave the vehicle where it is and walk. All of which led to my walking the 20 minute journey to the local shopping centre from my daughter's flat. A very pleasant exercise. Then doing a nice little Supermarket shop for her, and in the process just doing as one normally does... adding a few "treats" and extras.... a couple of bottles of soft drinks and a couple of bottles of wine, and a nice melon and stuff like that.

I am so used to using the car, it hadn't occurred to me that I now had to carry the stuff back up the hill to the flat! Almost certainly, my payload was less than a third of the weight I have shed in the last 18 weeks.

I struggled. I sweated. I even considered jettisoning some of the shopping. And I marvelled at how I had managed to just move around before I started the weight loss regime. What a timely reminder of how I had been killing myself.....

My visit did, however, give me plenty of time to really think, which is maybe a luxury that a lot of folk would benefit from trying out. The unsolicited comments and compliments still keep a-coming.... but maybe I'm just a glass-half-empty sort of person: To me, every comment on how much better I look and how well I'm doing and how much people admire my efforts is more a comment on what an eyesore I must have been in the past. And the clinic has kindly promised me a copy of the "before" and "after" medical photos of my appearance.... which I have now seen and consider quite mind-blowing.

I had no idea how huge I had got. And the "after" photo is still that of a fat man. I shall re-title it "during". Because no matter how many people say how slim I now look, I smell a whiff of ... er... bullshine. They ain't seen nothin' yet!

But as for losing weight and staying at a normal weight, I am fast reaching the conclusion that I have been looking at the problem from the wrong perspective.... the medical perspective, which treats obesity like an illness and seeks to cure it. Maybe there is no cure for those of the frugal genotype. Maybe we are doomed to always crave Carbs, lay down fat at the drop of a scone and always be vulnerable to rebounding in body mass. But maybe this is the wrong tack.... maybe we should be seeking to change rather than to cure.

If you traded in your crappy old, slow truck for a sports car, you'd expect different things from it.... and more importantly, you'd expect to drive it differently (maybe you'd even have to learn how...). Now I'm not yet a Ferrari, but I'm no longer a shed-on-legs. Maybe I ought to be looking not only about how much fuel I put in the tank, but what sort and how I drive it....

Hmmm....

Thanks, Fi. Your contact has really helped me to get a new - and I think - more useful focus on the challenge of my personal weight management quest. An example of just chargin' ahead was when I got a very sore midriff after about eight weeks of the severe section of the diet. I had lost a vast amount of weight and was feeling absolutely great - rejuvenated, in fact. I was really enjoying doing things again... and at that time I had lost about 12" off my waist.

It turns out that I had given myself an abdomenal hernia.... which let's face it, is hardly surprising when you think that tummy muscles that now had to hold up nearly half a hundredweight less had 12" of slack to take up when I was lifting fencing panels and riding my bicycle, etc...

But the Medics I consulted just had no explanations or advice. They just said "Well done" and "I don't know anyone who has lost so much so quickly, so I cannot advise...." Which rather bloody annoys me. I've given birth to quads(I guess that's about the equivalent!) in about a quarter of the time... and Medical Science has nothing to offer me! Now I can see that I need a more structured approach to my exercise, one which encourages my muscles and ligaments to keep better pace with my changing body shape. Now that isn't exactly rocket science, is it?

So I need to address issues like getting my head into a gear that will support my ongoing success, my body and physical fitness into shape, whilst adjusting my diet to something new.....

And if I ever expected any useful contribution from the GP, I can forget about it....

But there's even more.... I used to hate the prejudice that was associated with body shape. People generally see fat folk as ..... well, I'm not even going to bless this with a list. I feel odd that now I am not as much of an eyesore I am not going to have the impact on people I previously had - I'm being the bigot that I so despised! I have lost weight, not personality, not brainpower (although sometimes I wonder!)... so far from fearing the change, maybe I should develop some new strategies for harnessing a more positive image....

Hey, Fi ! You have certainly set me thinking.... Hope I can do the same in return. Regards,

BigE

Hi BigE and Fi,

I stumbled across this conversation now, and find it quite interesting (hope you don't mind the virtual "butting in"?)

I have experienced similar conflicting feelings about losing weight, the ensuing comments ("hiya skinny", when I am still over 80kgs) and the mental arithmetic following my weight loss admissions.

While I try to keep a positive focus, as I think our minds have so much to do with our success, I am struggling with the concept that I must have been such an eyesore before if I am attracting the comments now. And also the self worth tied with my weight/weight loss, loss of anonymity, the reaction from others.

Some days I feel like I'm being taken more seriously or noticed more then when I was about 20kgs heavier - this upsets me because I feel "sorry" for my heavier self (it IS like talking about someone else, isn't it?). I think she didn't deserve such treatment behind her back, and I feel like I am betraying her and participating in the silent judgement of her when I listen to the compliments and comments while smiling inanely (as there really isn't anything you can say back, is there?)

Then some days I feel like I am just being looked at, admired, or my appearance is a distraction when someone I am presenting to has not seen me for a while. Usually the first comment is not "what an interesting theory/finding", but "gosh, you're looking good, what's your secret?" And I find this disconcerting because I feel like I am giving into society's need for thinness, and not being true to my inward qualities (intellect, personality, kindness).

It's a doozy, because once you start thinkning like this, it's very difficult to see why you started this journey in the first place, and it can become a vicious spiral (we have all been on the yo-yo before).

Hi Tashalls,
Glad you butted into this conversation, its great to hear from you.........I feel as if you understand EXACTLY what I am talking about as like you I can't help feeling sorry for my heavier self! And like you I struggle with seeing myself as different versions of the same person. I know that I react very differently to situations when having fat days, mainly due to decreased confidence and a bit of over-sensitivity thrown in!
If we do this to ourselves what hope do we have getting a fair deal from the rest of the world? And how can we change? I have a feeling that if we could address theses issues then the weight loss would follow.

Hi Fi, glad you're not upset about the interruption. Although as Eric is now off the site, we can perhaps take up the conversation from here!



You're quite right - we need to be kind to ourselves. And it's the worst thing to "overthink" your weight loss, as you end up sabotaging it. We are so hard on ourselves through this incredibly difficult physical, mental and emotional journey. Supporting ourselves should be the first thing on our minds.

This is what I alluded to, though, when I said I felt like I was betraying my "larger self" when happily accepting compliements that she would have never received. Still, by losing the weight we are really entering into "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality anyway.



Of course, if you or I could answer this seemingly simple question, we would be weight loss gurus and millionaires (and I certainly wouldn't post my answer on this site if that were the case)!



All I know is that all the weight loss schemes and philosophies in the world still fail to answer this question. Most are about the physical journey, even the mental one (rallying resouces around goals, motivation, etc). But precious few go to the real phsycological reasons we have for getting fat, staying fat, and regaining weight once we have learned first hand how great it is to be thin. Some books kind of dance around this issue, but because the problems for each and every one of us is difference, no one prescription can apply to all.

This is why prescriptive weight loss "bibles" fail for most of us - they will only address one (maybe two) deep-rooted issues at the heart of our battle.

Phew!