The Happiness Diet

(Original post from  February 22, 2015)

Disclaimer: I am not a therapist, doctor, personal trainer, magician, theologist, ideologist, fortune teller, psychologist, and most certainly not a comedian. In other words I feel like sharing my feelings about something that I am not qualified to share my feelings on. But I am going to do it anyway so take it or leave it.

As most of you know I have made a drastic change in my appearance in the last couple of years. I went from looking like this:

To looking like this : 

I am showing how deep the water was during Hurricane Ike

A total of 135 pounds gone so far. 13 inches off of the waist. Man, I should have been on the biggest loser or got some company to hire me to be there weight loss model. I could have been the next $ubway guy. Gosh, dang it! Well… “How did you do it Andy?” Lots of you have asked me that question. I am now officially apologizing for not being completely honest with any of you. I would tell you that it was a lot of hard work (true), changing my eating habits (true), exercising (true), but there is something that I believe is VITAL in my weight loss journey that I never mentioned. I believe 100% that I was on the happiness diet. Yep, you read that right, the happiness diet. I couldn't go out and buy it at the store or order it within the next 20 minutes to get the second one free. It was something I had to find for myself.

The weight started coming off (and staying off) in April of 2012. If you read my last post you will remember that April of 2012 was when I accepted that I was gay. As I look back now, I have concluded that I had used food as a way to control a part of my life when I felt like I could not control so many other things. I saw food as a way to make me happy. I used food as a way of self-medicating my depression. I allowed myself to be so obese as a way of punishing myself for not being good enough. I let my body image reflect how I felt on the inside. But once I started loving myself and got out of my depression the weight melted off. I am sure if I did some research on this topic I could find stuff to back up my theory.

SIDE NOTE: Before I go any further I want to be perfectly clear about something….these are all conclusions from my life and how my weight has applied to my life. In NO way am I saying that anyone that is overweight is therefore depressed. Trust me honey, I am the last person to judge someone with a little extra weight on their bones.

Body image can be a very sensitive topic nowadays so I approach this cautiously. We all see the magazines showing us how society wants us to look. Can we all just agree that those pictures are fake and no one looks like that?! On the contrary, many voices in the world say that all we need to do is accept the skin that we are in and love ourselves...which I totally agree with! We are all different and look different and that is life! I was okay being as fat as I was most of the time. Yeah, I would have loved to have a perfect body but I liked food more than I wanted that body. I have come to learn that the only person that can affect your own body weight is yourself (duhhhhh). If you are happy being 10% body fat or 50% body fat….go for it dude!

Being skinny makes me really happy though and I will tell you some reasons why:

1)      It means I accomplished something really really really really hard! Losing 20 pounds is a big deal for some people but to lose 135 pounds….man was that hard! There is so much satisfaction in knowing I climbed that mountain.

2)      It gives me freedom. I am no longer restricted in my mobility because there is too much dragging me down. I have taken up long distance running and whenever I tell people I love to run they never understand why. This is why: because I feel free! If I want to go outside and run 7 miles….then I can! Do you realize how cool that is? Just running down the street before would have left me winded. I can play basketball, volleyball, soccer, you name it, and not get winded! I can dance and move. The restrictions I now place on my eating habits are far less than the restrictions I had from being obese. So not eating that piece of cake is actually giving me more freedom!

3)      Ummmmm my health! I don't care who you are, you have to agree that it is healthier to be active and eating right. Our bodies are meant to be this way. I simply feel better when I eat right and exercise. Food is EVERYWHERE in our society today and we don't really need most of what is out there. No, you don’t need that double bacon hamburger or candy or Cheetos or ice cream or second helping of bread sticks. I love food but what has really helped me is to see food as energy for my body. It is fuel and I am taking care of my vehicle. I want to live a long healthy life! I don’t want to have to worry about diabetes, my blood pressure, or my cholesterol. Our bodies are a temple and I definitely did not see it that way a few years ago!

4)      And I would be lying if I said I didn't care about how I look. Yeah, it’s nice to be skinny because I think I look better.

Clothes are so much more fun now (I buy way too many clothes ha ha). I see it as a positive reaction to all the hard work that I put into staying healthy.

Am I proud of myself for losing 135 pounds...? Heck yeah I am! I may bring it up a lot because it is such big deal to me. So sorry if I mention it too much! Just because you haven't lost 135 pounds doesn't mean you aren't beautiful either! Figure out what you want and stick with it!

So there is my take on body image. Love yourself and be healthy. Hopefully I didn't blow your mind too much ha ha.

P.S. If someone would like to give me some new skin I would love you forever. Carrying over 100 pounds of extra weight for such a long period of time has left my skin....very stretchy and marked. Please work on that guys! Okay thanks!