I believe it’s Sun Tzu that said something along the lines of, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” It’s no secret that the weight loss journey is long and grueling, a battle that many lose. In order to be successful and keep motivated to fully attack this head on, it’s good to know your enemy. So I’m going to examine exactly what I’m up against in my battle to be healthy.

I’m going to split these up into two general categories: internal and external factors.

Internal Factors

Biology – No, this is not where I make excuses.

From what I understand, medical science is in the early to mid stages of understanding exactly how biology is tied to obesity. There are many theories and sometimes contradicting studies out there. While they disagree whether obesity’s contributing factors are more natural genetics or environment (likely a combination of both), they DO seem to agree on a few things.

After reading this article in Science Daily, from what I understand we all seem to have an “obesity gene.” However, it’s enabled by environmental factors, and furthermore it seems to turn on easier for some than for others. The body is an amazing thing and it’s ability to survive is what has put us on top of the food chain. Unfortunately, once it finds a state of survival, it does whatever it can to stay the same and resist the change.

Long story short, my own body is my enemy! Since I’ve been big for so long, my own genetics, how my body processes fat, how my hormones metabolize food, it actually fights to keep itself fat!

This can explain why overweight people yo-yo so much. The good news in this is, pushing through and keeping it off will hopefully eventually reset everything and one can flip the switch back to their advantage.

Education – I may not have fully understood or acknowledged the importance of eating properly in the past, but that will not be an excuse any more. Start with the basic macros: fats, proteins, and carbs. Try and get the proper proportions that line up with your goals, and do it!

Emotions – This one is tough to talk about, and I’ve touched on it a few times ago in previous blogs, most recently in my Psycoholgy of Weight Loss post, but I need to change my relationship with food.

I’ve mentioned Matt Cama previously and how I really enjoy his videos explaining the mental/spiritual side of getting control of your body. One of his videos he stated, “Emotions don’t happen to you, you do them.” Sometimes negative emotions only hurt yourself instead of alleviating the situation. So I must recognize this and not give into it.

Confidence – We aren’t born with low self-esteem, it is conditioned.

It’s no secret that fat people get looks doing every day activities. Whether we are or not, it’s not uncommon to feel judged every time you have a meal whether it’s healthy or unhealthy. It’s also no secret that when people get more fit, it boosts their confidence. I’ll defer all explanation to John Glaude of Obese to Beast talking about the difference in his confidence levels in two weddings, one before and another after he lost 170 lbs:

External Factors

Confidence (Part 2) – Many other bloggers speak of being bullied while fat. I’ve never been bullied thankfully, but thinking back on it, I have always been aware of it. Here are just a few things I can think of off the top of my head:

• In 4th grade, we had something called “Young Authors,” where each student received a blank book to create their own story. I remember a classmate referenced many people in the class. The reference to me was two characters something along the lines of, “Hey, there’s David over there” “Yeah, he looks even bigger today!” I never thought it was a big deal, but that happened over 25 years ago and I still remember feeling sad.
• Even younger than that, I remember being in a school gymnasium for an activity day. I don’t even remember what station I was at, but I remember being on the outskirts of the group and a woman said to me loudly, “Don’t you worry. The bigger we are, the JOLLIER we are!” I was really young, but it was one of the first times I remember being pointed out as different in this type of way.
• In High School, I was in band, choir, drumline, pretty much all the music stuff. When getting ready for a performance, I was having trouble squeezing into my pants, my friend asked me about it and I responded, “I don’t want to talk about it.” This story in particular I didn’t even remember until it was brought up to me recently.
• Likewise, when learning dances for performances, I distinctly remember a teacher trying to pay a compliment by saying, “You’re surprisingly agile!” I definitely was taken back by this comment.

This has really resulted in my introverted (yet can still be outgoing) nature. I love people, but I have difficulty putting myself out there. I’ve even mentioned in a previous blog that I am wary whenever people give me compliments, that I often doubt the sincerity or their intention, and that is not a good thing at all.

Societal Perception – While it may not be consciously malicious, it’s a shallow shallow world.

Whether we want to admit it or not, looks matter a lot in today’s society. You can find a plethora of articles that prove this, whether it’s talking about Dressing for the Job You Want to People More Attractive Are Seen As More Trustworthy. Before you even open your mouth, you are judged.

I’ll present a good example in what I’m calling “The Susan Boyle Effect” from Britain’s Got Talent back in 2009:

At the 1:28 mark of that video explains it all, the host looks at the camera and says, “You didn’t expect that did you? Did you? No!”

Of course not! She’s plain looking, she’s older, she’s a little awkward, how in the world could she be a good singer? What’s the correlation between looks and singing? Absolutely nothing! Her answer to when Simon Cowell asked why her dream to be a professional singer hasn’t worked out, “I’ve never been given the chance before…” says it all right there.

Edit: Apparently The Susan Boyle Effect  is a real thing, I didn’t come up with it after all!

Before moving forward, let me clarify something: I’m not blaming anyone, and I’m not whining or moping. This is meant to be an extension of my previous blog post where I discuss what’s at stake if I fail. I work in the entertainment industry, so the shallowness runs even deeper than in the rest of society. It doesn’t matter that I’m a behind the scenes/behind the camera person! No doubt I’ve likely been passed over in the past because of my weight, but there’s no use in holding resentment now.

What to gain from this: you don’t need to fall to those expectations and you can’t control what others think. All you can do is acknowledge that it exists and look within to see you have the power to take action. I think the key for me is to stop trying to prove myself to others because in doing so I’m ignoring my self-worth. I’m doing this to make myself healthy and live a long life, but if it opens up more opportunities for me, it’s unfortunate that it has to be this way but I’ll take it nevertheless. It can be one more source of motivation.

It’s an uphill climb for sure, but my fate is within my own control. I fully acknowledge and accept responsibility for putting myself in this position, now I’ve spent a year learning the tools to get out of this. It’s time to put in the work, stay disciplined, stay focused, and not let my emotions get me off track.

It’s that easy, right?!