I say this as someone who, four months ago, was 70 kilos and fit, and who stepped on the scale this morning at 79. Nine kilos. I didn’t notice them arriving because they came in disguise as KFC on the way home, double portions because one wasn’t doing the job, and Diet Coke at every meal like it was water.
I lost 20 kilos once before, at 16, locked down and angry that my school friends had taken to calling me Kim Jong-un. Spite is a hell of an engine when you’re a teenager, and it got me all the way to the version of myself I wanted to be. The problem is that spite has a short shelf life, and I’m 22 now with a wife and a life I genuinely like, so I can’t really relapse into hating my younger self for motivation. I need a quieter reason, and when I sit with it the reason is simple. I want to be a healthy husband. I want to be a healthy father one day, the kind who carries his kids on his shoulders without sounding like a broken accordion.
I’ve stopped framing this as a goal and started framing it as an identity. I’m not trying to lose weight. I’m someone who doesn’t stack up on fried and sugary food, full stop. Goals get re-litigated every Tuesday night when I’m tired and the KFC is on the way home. Identities don’t, because there’s nothing to argue about. You either are the guy who eats that or you aren’t, and I’ve decided I’m not. I smoke the not so occasional cigarette, because smoking is at least cool in a tragic sort of way, but being fat as hell has no such redeeming aesthetic and I refuse to defend it.
So three simple boring changes from today. No sugar, no fried food, no eating in front of the TV. Sunday mornings I weigh in and write the number down. That gets me back to 70 by late summer without me having to count a thing. The diet is the easy part for me. The hard part was being honest about what the food was doing for me, and I think I’ve got that part figured out now.