Twerps!

Before going further, I want to clear something up.  This is not the first time I’ve had a “big weight loss” project.  It’s not a brand new discovery that this kind of goal takes a lot of time and investment and is just super hard.  In fact, I’ve generally had at least some kind of project to get or stay healthy and lose weight.  I’ve immersed myself in biking, martial arts, walking, running, and gyms before.  I’ve recorded my food intake in paper and digital diaries for extended periods of time.  Most of the time, over my whole adulthood, there has been at least some kind of “project” running.  I am not a newbie.

I say this in part because it’s important to state at the outset that of course, this is a huge, time-consuming problem, and not an easy one to solve.  If there’s a “new element” this time, it’s in my committing a vastly larger amount of time and effort to the project than I’ve done before — I’m finished with the “all you have to do is this little bit on the treadmill” philosophy. And I’d also like to think that I’ve learned a lot over the years about stuff that works and things that don’t.

But I also say it because it brings up, again, the problem of our “critics.”

If you grew up heavy, you learned a lot about your critics, and also about how thoroughly rotten people can be sometimes.  Little overweight kids are nearly always exposed to the jeers and name-calling and even downright bullying of other kids.  And of course, kids take all that name-calling inside — it informs their self-images.