At 27 years old, I finally got tired of being fat, so I quit.

Think about it, being fat is something you have to work at. You have to actively ingest calories to gain weight, spoon by spoon, handful by handful. In my case it was Ben and Jerry’s carton by Ben and Jerry’s carton, among other over-indulgences. If you read part one of this series, you know the singular step that precipitated the weight gain, but every day after that was a choice on how to live. I made me fat. It wasn’t snack food companies. It wasn’t the lack of municipal recreation opportunities, nor was it the president. I did it to myself and I determined to stop it.

Getting to my peak weight took about five years, so when I made my resolution, I anticipated it taking at least two years to drop the 60 pounds to get back into fighting shape.

I was wrong. It took four months.

How did I do it? I ingested tapeworm cysts, cottonballs soaked in orange juice and tapioca pellets. No, I’m only kidding, though the reality was almost as stark.

Really there were two main components, running and nutrition.

Running

I love seeing fat people run. It kind of gives me goose bumps, not because I’m delighting in their suffering, but because I’m so proud of them. Running fat is HARD. Everything bounces. Your joints hurt. Your lungs burn, and that’s just getting your shoes tied. It’s terrible, but I was determined to keep my pre-30 year old metabolism jacked. So for every day for over a year, I ran first thing in the morning and  last thing at night. Every day, twice a day. No skipping out. 12 hours didn’t go by until I was out there pounding the pavement, shorter distances at first, then I worked my way into daily miles.

Mostly I did everything wrong getting into running. Crappy shoes, improper fueling of my body, the wrong clothing…the only thing I had going for me was determination. I remember the first time going into a real running store after I had been going for a few months. The sales guy asked how many miles I was doing weekly. I told him 30, which was true. He seemed impressed and asked what I was training for.

“Nothing. Maybe life?”

Those days seem like a memory to me now, like they couldn’t have happened. Sometimes I’d come home from hanging out with friends and it’d be after 11 pm. I’d go change, lace up my shoes and head out to do some midnight laps. Our neighbors thought knew I had a mental condition.

Nutrition

And while we’re on the subject of mental conditions, if you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like to be a human hay baler, just ask me because I ate a lot of fiber. Huge salads for lunch, shredded wheat or oatmeal for breakfast. Tons of roughage, but it kept me full, which made it easier to abstain from the junk I used to eat. I also ate a lot of canned tuna and splurged sometimes by adding a shot of ranch dressing to it. By the way, who’s hungry?

It was a stark diet indeed (and now in word) but was also coupled with a complete and uncompromising removal of the following items:

• Candy
• Fast Food
• Desserts
• Fried Food
• Snack Foods
• Carbonated Drinks

My overhauled nutrition regimen doesn’t sound like fun, but that’s only because it wasn’t. Dining out or at friends’ houses was a challenge, but the entire system wasn’t as hard as you might imagine. Remember how I said being fat is something you have to work at? I kept reminding myself, ‘All you have to do is not do something, namely eat junk.’ That seemed to work for me. I avoided so many unneeded calories that, coupled with my running schedule I lost weight far faster than expected.

In November and December of 2007, 60 pounds lighter than I was in August, friends and family around me either didn’t recognize me or they thought I was terminal. My doctor couldn’t believe it. He said all he ever sees is people ignoring his health advice and getting heavier and heavier. I think I made his day when I came in for my physical.

The one real downside to losing the weight was having to buy new clothes. I’ll always hate that process, and on one trip out for some new shirts, Beth made a comment about my overall transformed appearance.

“You kinda look like you just escaped a concentration camp.”

She wasn’t wrong and she inadvertently highlighted a concept that I hadn’t considered before: You can be thin and still unhealthy. I had literally run my a** off and it was time for the next phase.

Stay tuned for part three where I chronicle how I made the transition from svelte to strong. Also, if you want to hear me talk more about this entire transformation, subscribe to my podcast (a radio show hosted on the Internet) by clicking on the tabs in the upper right hand sidebar on this page. It’ll be covered in greater detail on the August show. You can also subscribe to get notifications when my latest writings are published by following me on social media.