Your Greatest Moment After Weight Loss

Losing weight isn’t exactly easy. It takes time, determination and self-control. What was the greatest thing that made it all worth to you?

The Rational Reasons For Weight Loss

We all know the sensible, the good reasons why we lost weight: less risk of a heart attack and diabetes, lower blood pressure, not getting a fatty liver etc.

All of them are valid, and our rational selves probably acknowledge these reasons.

But having lowered my blood pressure didn’t exactly give me much of an aha moment that connected with me deep down emotionally. One that gave me that feeling of “is this cool or what?” You know, the moment where you really realize you made a good and worthwhile change.

A Manly Moment

For me that came when my girlfriend had fallen asleep on the couch. She does from time to time, after a long and busy day. Back when I was overweight, my routine of getting her to go to bed (and avoid a stiff back from hell) was to gently wake her up.

About one year after my weight loss and strength training journey started, I thought I’d try something different. Something really manly: I wanted to carry her to bed.

I opened all doors between living room and bedroom as wide as I could, gently pulled away the blanket she was covered with, held her under her knees and back and did my best deadlift ever. Carrying her in my arms I brought her to her bed and slowly laid her into it. At that point my arms felt like the Titanic’s welding lines after impact with the iceberg. But, golly, I made it. And she didn’t even wake up.

I felt like this guy:

Yes, it really felt like that. Because for overweight me it would have been impossible to do it.

I still remember that three years before I had bought loudspeakers, each weighing about 50 lbs, and couldn’t carry them to the second floor. I had to ask a construction worker from next door to help me and he said he could carry them by himself. And he did, despite being one head shorter than me and probably weighing no more than 140 lbs.

Did You Have A Moment Like That?

Did you have a moment like that? Maybe it was being able to cross your legs again. Or playing with your dog in the park. Or something as simple as your socks staying over your calves.

I think these can go from totally trivial (like mine) to really life-changing – they all define what weight loss made good for us as individuals.

Picture courtesy of Leszek Leszczynski.