What Made you Want to Lose that Weight Once and for All?

I was talking to a friend (@Oriana) about my weight loss yesterday, and got thinking about the various incidents that led up to the point that made me say enough is enough.

Did you experience that one defining moment when you decided that it was now or never? A moment when the light bulb went on and triggered a mental shift in your efforts to lose weight? Was it one major incident or a series of little ones that set your weight loss in motion? What made you want to lose that weight once and for all? What keeps you going? I'd love to hear some stories!

Personally, I'd always had the right ideas about losing weight - health, vanity, longevity. But none of these were enough to motivate me to do something about it. In the end it took three-months of sustained humiliation from friends, family and strangers to get me to change my ways. Story follows.

 

Up until my early 20s I'd always been a normal weight, that is until I landed in the USA as a grad student. I had zero cooking skills and an abundance of cheap fast food on campus. Two years later, I was on my way to the grad student version of the freshman fifteen. Years passed, babies came, and my BMI scaled gravity defying heights. I always meant to lose the weight but never could get myself to commit with any consistency.

The tipping point came two winters ago. I'd just had my daughter and decided to spend my maternity leave in India with my parents. A cousin was getting married and it promised to be the perfect vacation. Having spent the past decade in the overly polite and politically correct company of my Western friends and colleagues, I was in a for a reverse culture shock in the good old motherland! You see, I'd forgotten that in India if you're fat, people are very happy to point it out! I don't know if this is true pan-India but where I'm from folks don't have a filter. Not one day went by without some oblique reference to my unfortunate girth! A sampling of the things that were said, some in jest, others perfectly seriously.

Domestic help (*shyly*): Didi, aap thodi healthy ho gayi hain.
Cousin (*slapping my back*): Kyun Gauri, America ke saare burger tumhi ne kha liye?
Mom (*at a communal dinner*): Beta roti khaya karo, chawal chhod do ab.
FIL (*gleefully*): You used to look like a college girl. Now you're finally looking like the mother of two kids.

I wanted to scream at everyone," Gimme a break! I just had a baby 2 months ago!" But deep down I knew that the baby was only partially responsible for my plight. Then came the day to get measured for saree blouses for the wedding. All us women landed at the store of a tailor who came highly recommended, picked out the styles, materials, and gave him our preferences. Everything was going swimmingly, until we started talking prices. He said he charged a flat Rs 1050 for the style we wanted. Then the tailor's assistant pointed at me and said,

Tailor (pointing at me): Inke thode jyada lagenge. Rs 1200. (Her's will cost more.)
Mum: Kyun?
Tailor: Size pe depend hota hai na madam. Kaam jyada hoga, kapda bhi jyada lagega. (Depends on the size madam. More material, more work.)

Even the crickets went silent in commiseration with my plight. My family were sheepishly trying not to make eye contact with me. Damn you Gauri for being an atheist! Were I a believer I would have besought the heavens to smite that goddamned darzi! I felt like an external observer watching my own mortification unfold in slow motion. On the way back my mom and aunts tried, unhelpfully, to bolster my spirits by railing at the badtameez tailor. I got home, called my sleeping husband, and narrated the entire humiliating experience. He tried to act sympathetic but couldn't keep his composure, and started laughing hysterically. His idea of consoling me was, "Don't worry. I'll get a second job to pay for your bigger-sized clothes." I wanted so badly to reach into the phone and clobber him. That night at dinner everyone had a good laugh over my misery. "Inke thode jyada lagenge" has become a legendary joke in my family.

As much as I enjoyed the hilarity at my own expense, I silently promised myself that this was the last time I would expose myself to ridicule. I dusted my old MFP ID and started logging diligently, started the C25K program, and thanks to my IL friends, completed it. It's been a year and despite an injury that's kept me from running, the weight has continued to come off. Today I weigh as much as I did when I got married! I've gone from a size 12-14 to a size 2-4! I'm not done yet, but I'm happy with where I am.

In retrospect, perhaps plain-speak isn't such a bad idea. All the PC tiptoeing around the issue didn't give me the motivation that 3 months of the India-treatment did!