For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.
From the early days of my blog, when I was still trying to figure out what to write, and when, comes a post that’s reflective and thoughtful. It came at a time when I was redefining what I could do in physical terms – Just three days prior to this post, I ran in my first-ever 5K race, the 2004 Shamrock Run, after having been exercising on and off for a couple of years, and a couple of months of “training” for the race.
I was on a steep weight-loss curve – after having resigned myself to the fact that I was just the size I was, and that couldn’t change.
Obviously, I was wrong. I could lose weight; I proved it to myself in the most dramatic fashion.
I could run; again, the proof was in the doing.
These early reflections, below, are still with me even today. I’ve internalized the idea that I can set goals, and that I am not carved in stone. I can change.
Here’s to the future.
*****
First, I understand that fat cells never (or rarely) ever die. They grow and shrink, but you never really change the number of cells you have during your adult life.
Second, I understand that fat cells are where your body stores toxins and poisons and other gunk that doesn’t get filtered out by your liver.
Third, it’s my understanding (as well as making logical sense, assuming the above two assertions are true) that when someone diets, their fat cells dump the poisons and toxins along with the fat. It’s a side-effect of dieting that I’ve read of in several books.
Lastly, I’ve been fat for at least my entire adult life.
That all being the case, then during this whole process of shrinking from 225 to under 180 lbs (or for that matter, from 240 in August 2000, my highest weight ever), I’ve been dumping, along with the weight, poisons that I have carried around with me for my entire life.
I don’t know if it’s scientifically true… but I’d like to think it’s metaphorically true.
So in many ways, I am, in fact, a brand-new person. Or at least, cleaner. I’ve shed more than weight; I’ve rid myself of past hates and fears… At least.
I feel… great. Amazing, in fact. I don’t want to leave behind my past; it’s what made me what I am. But there are certain parts of “the old Brian” that I am not going to miss at all.
This is apparently all part of my adjusting self-image. Brian is dead… long live Brian.