The Slide Into Fatness

I wasn't always fat. In my 20s my body was a thick, muscular machine. I had just come off years of working in carpentry shops and a year of mild starvation living in a hotel in Milwaukee. I worked out at least 5 days a week. I went to yoga classes, boxing classes, and Orange Theory. On the weekends I would jump out of bed to take my dog for a hike. I regularly spent whole days biking around town. I ran in the park. There are two different occasions when I remember crying because the weather spoiled my workout plans. I traveled around the world, by myself, to kayak coastlines, hike under the midnight sun, or climb mountains.

Working out was part of my mental health plan. I was surrounded by friends who also worked out. When I was a teacher, my best friend and I would leave school, go to Orange Theory, and then go back to school to finish grading papers.

After 8 years of teaching and two years as a dean I accepted a full principalship at my school. I prepared myself by spending my summer break in the Costa Rican jungle and getting a thumb tattoo (which is to say that I was not at all prepared), and there, while getting peed on by howler monkeys, I made the most ludicrous decision of my life: to let myself eat whatever I want for a year.

I know you're struggling to connect those ideas, and I don't blame you, but hear me out. I knew that I was about to take on one of the hardest jobs there is, and I knew that there were going to be moments of self doubt, moments of ugly self-discovery, and moments when I was not going to be enough despite working myself to the bone. Thus, I gave myself permission to find comfort in food.

Obviously, this backfired. For so many reasons.

1. In giving myself permission to find comfort in food, I increased the connection between food and comfort in my mind. This is not a connection that anyone needs to strengthen for any reason.

2. I did not know enough about hormones. Grehlin is a hormone in our stomachs that makes sure we have an endless supply of energy. It it supposed to spike when our stomachs are empty, but for overweight people it also spikes when we drop pounds, making us feel hungrier. Leptin's goal is energy preservation, and when fat is lost it freaks out and does what it can to make you pick up a fork. It also keeps your thyroid (metabolism) in top shape. When Leptin drops after weight loss, so does your metabolism, meaning you need less food to simply maintain your weight. Cholecystokinin helps slowly digested nutrients, like protein and fiber, keep you full between meals. It reduces the rate by which food is emptied from your stomach. Unless, of course, you decide to lose weight. Then it tanks. In fact, it continues to tank more and more as you lose more weight. TLDR: The fact that I am overweight now will make it continuously harder to feel full and lose weight. And if I DO lose weight, losing more will only get (again) harder and harder.

3. I created several terrible habits. And we all know how easy those are to break.

4. It took me entirely too long to learn how to manage my stress in a healthy way, and my lack of knowledge in this area led me to literal madness and back (I will talk about that later).

Once I gave myself the assignment to eat whatever I wanted I really leaned into it. There are times when I ate whole pizzas, had ice cream sundaes delivered to my office window, and stored cheeseburgers in my pockets for later. After leading a really brutal professional development I would go back to my office and think, "It's okay. What can I eat?"

Unfortunately, as I will show you, what started as a few extra pounds here and there, spiraled into something I was not at all expecting: a date with madness.