I'm Fat (Again)

It’s time to come clean. I’m fat again.

I know self-shaming is a problem, but this is not some sort of body dysmorphia. I know when I’m fat – again – because of the again part. I’ve been fat before.

Back at the end of 2008, I tipped the scales at 279 pounds. I was 27 years old at the time, working full-time evenings in a hospital doing patient registration and financial counseling of emergency room patients. I had just graduated with a not-so-useful political science degree. My wife was waiting tables, having just graduated with not-so-useful-at-the-time graphic and web design degrees. We were renters. We had a lot of debt, and lived in Lexington, Ky., an area which, at the time, offered very few prospects for young professionals.

I was depressed. With a large portion of my days open due to no longer attending classes, I lapsed into a life of binge TV watching and playing video games, drinking and smoking too much, and generally doing nothing.

Eventually, one day at work, I took a moment to stand on a scale, where I was startled to learn I was almost 279 pounds. That was 10 years ago almost to the day. My eyes were open to the fact that I was wasting my life.

But Then I Got Thin. Well, Thinner.

Within 18 months I was down to around 205 pounds. None of my clothes fit. I'd lost more than 1/4 of my body mass.

How did I accomplish my weight loss?

My wife and I already shared a car, so I became a bicycle commuter. Working at a university hospital gave me free access to a gym, so I went to the gym every day. I stopped eating fast food, stopped eating warm-and-serve food from the can, box or freezer, and stopped going out to eat. I started eating healthier snacks and smaller portions. I brought myself back to a moderate level of physical fitness in a small amount of time.

But It Didn't Last.

Today, I’m back to around 260 pounds, and I know why.

In 2011, I took my first journalism job in far northern New York, away from gyms, healthy eating and all of the lifestyle elements that took me out of the house and away from the television and video games.

Cheryl (my wife) and I were isolated. We had a few friends, but not many, and most lived in a college town 30 miles away from us. We literally lived on the Canadian border and took a serious liking to poutine. In the winter, where wind chills frequently fell below zero and remained there for weeks at a time, we wouldn’t go out – the sun set at 4 pm anyway, there wasn’t much to go out to after work. We spent a lot of time sitting and eating, and eating and sitting.

Seeing how unhealthy our lives had become in the subarctic tundra of New York’s North Country, Cheryl and I jumped at the chance to come down to the Jersey Shore and start our lives anew again. Yet we never really shifted from the sedentary lifestyle we had adopted in New York back towards the more active and outgoing lifestyle we had cultivated in Lexington.

I did have a few starts and stops with exercising when I briefly worked at a local college, and I’ve tried to make walking and cycling a more regular part of my life, but I still do not exercise enough and I’m sure as hell not eating well (boardwalk food is definitely not the healthiest food around).

It's Never Too Late For A Change.

Here I am at 37 years old and all of that is going to have to change. I’m buying a gym membership this month. I know many personal finance writers argue that gym memberships are a luxury that we can do without, but having access to a gym provides the infrastructure I need to develop my personal fitness. It helps me, behaviorally, to have a place I can go to to work on my body.

I’m fat, I know it, it needs to change and I’m going to do something about it. I have a plan, and part one of that plan is to go get help. I sometimes feel like the DIY culture around lifestyle, fitness and finance encourages people to skip the “go get help” step too early in their process.

I think most people operate the same way I do with physical fitness, at least with some portion of their lives. There are those of us who cannot really learn outside of a classroom, or who need a tangible, old-fashioned book to read because tablets and e-readers don’t suit them. There are those of us who can’t experience music fully unless it’s on vinyl, or in live performance.

Some of us may be the same way with our personal finances – there are many smart, capable, brave people who cannot put their financial lives together by themselves on paper or on a computer screen. The task is too intimidating or too daunting. These are the types of people who need a trusted financial advisor for help – and I think they’re the kind of people who I would like to help some day, too.