A weight trainer has gained weight only to lose it. His weight pinnacle was achieved on November 5 and since then it’s been dropping rapidly. Yet some fatties won’t even accept a sendup to that blog – they take it as an insult.

I’ve always exercised daily, perhaps a military-like habit formed by my grandfather who forced me to join him in his 3X a day rigorous physical exercise regimen. This went quite well until a few years ago when, going through a rather stressful situation (let’s just say it involved the Ontario court system), I started doing my abs too quickly and powerfully. Soon enough I got some sharp chest pains and screeching sounds during exercising. I’m not the kind of guy to give in to pain, especially of the physical kind, so I kept pushing, until I could no longer breathe due to excruciating pain. My family doctor diagnosed me with costochondritis, but it was really Tietze’s Syndrome (links below). I was told to stop exercising to give my body time to heal. I did stop, I restarted exercising, the pain came back, I stopped again, waited longer, started exercising, pain was now far worse – I kept going back and forth. Eventually, with the help of a physiotherapist, I figured out that I was doing abs the wrong way and started doing it right. (It’s quite simple: don’t raise your head all the way to your knees, you only need a small 10 degree angle with the floor; the best and most effective way is to bring your elbow to your opposite knee while “pedalling” on your back.) The pain and the inflammation eventually went away, but my chest still makes “rusty metal” noises every now and then.

Throughout all this, my weight has not increased much (still around 180 lbs. which is normal for my height), but the ratio of lean muscle to fat decreased, and after I noticed some abdominal fat and “love handles”. Getting rid of it was much harder than I thought. Firstly, before, when I’d get nervous or stressed I would start doing some physical exercise almost by reflex. Now, I’d be eating. I had a voracious appetite and the more I ate, the hungrier I’d get. Every now and then, I’d get sad or stressed out or I’d worry I’m getting fat. I had visions of turning into Meatloaf and singing, forever alone, I would do anything for love. To feel better, I would stuff my face with almonds.

I noticed that my lovemaking endurance had dropped to less than half what it used to be. In one particularly intimate moment when I, on top, got closer to whisper a joke into her ear (there’s no better time to exercise your funny bone than when you have a captive audience) she looked like she was about to burst into laughter even before I said my joke then pulled my head closer, next to her ear, where she could no longer see it. Then, when she got on top, she’d start moving her head suddenly close and horizontally right above me a few times, hitting me with her hair, as if to make a point. My healthy laughter caused her to lose equilibrium, needing to find support with a hand on my chest, which caused me to wallow in pain for the rest of the day. Those were weird moments, so I decided to investigate. In the privacy of the bathroom, where there are a few mirrors, I noticed how my face, now enhanced by some additional and, fortunately, uniformly distributed layer of fat, had started hanging when horizontal, leaving my eyes far behind and giving me a desperately weird look (kinda like Gary Busey’s).

And it wasn’t the only signal I got. When I went windsurfing with a friend and got him to hold my camera while I was bending to change into my wetsuit, he too pointed it toward me, finding my hanging flabs equally funny.

OK, I may be exaggerating to make a point, but this (or similar) is the almost-universal fatty predicament. It is extremely hard to lose weight. Criticism makes them feel bad about themselves, losing weight takes a long time and in the meantime they need something to help them feel good, which is usually junk food, the kind that sticks to one’s belly.

The best way to lose weight is to eat less calories than you’re consuming. Sounds simple in theory, and it is. There are many ways to implement this simple concept:

1. exercising alone, though it sounds healthiest, has the least visible results and it’s the most difficult route: it’s hard to get fit again, you have to do it gradually and after exercising you get hungry, eating far more than you’ve expended
2. stop eating (caloric restriction) – yeah, right! still, eating less, even if you keep eating junk food, will reduce your cholesterol and essentially improve all your overall health quicker and better than most other methods as a recent experiment on himself by a nutrition prof has demonstrated
3. eating multivitamin and protein supplements are bound to decrease your food cravings and maintain your brain & willpower; btw, did you know that “whey protein isolate” – what most athletes use to increase their muscle mass – is nothing other than dehydrated cheese juice?

In my naïveté, I thought it might be a good idea to help a well-known fatso, the “Hardy” part of the “Laurel and Hardy” couple of the Romanian blogosphere. I’ve written about him in the article with Kate Moss and I present to the right the most flattering photo I could find. And then, wanting to leave him a heads-up, I’ve found a Google Plus link to an article of his, “following my own advice”, where he was plugging, most likely for money, a dish washer he supposedly had purchased for himself. Except that this heads up had already been given (corrected Google Translation):

AD - Follow the one with losing weight as well. Here’s an uncle who put on weight to lose weight, showing fatties of the world that it is indeed possible. He started losing it on November 5. You have a longer way to go and a late start, but I think it wouldn’t hurt you: http://www.fit2fat2fit.com/

CA - interesting how people always know what's best for others. can I ask why you have this deep concern for me? not to wonder why my dick (i.e., why the fuck) don’t each other mind our own business? only saying

That’s a reaction very common in fat people, though more extreme cases can always be found..

Why would anyone care? For one thing, we all are ONE. Secondly, left to their own devices, fatties organize and take over the world. Only a few years ago Canadian fatties earned the right to be called “disabled” and occupy 2 seats in airplanes for the price of one. Here’s how Wired presented the news:

For many, the free-seat fracas goes to the question of whether obesity is a disability. A Vancouver Sun columnist argues you can’t define a disability without considering the environment in which it exists. The way he sees it, most people would consider a blind man disabled, but if he lives in a land where everyone else is blind, he’s just another guy. An editorial in the Denver Post raises the same point. "Airlines should do their best to accommodate all passengers," the Post says. "Yet a majority of obese Americans are making a lifestyle choice. Forcing companies and passengers to make impractical financial adjustments on their behalf is unfair."

Canadian fatties owe their new rights to Linda McKay-Panos, an Albertan Civil Rights lawyer and highly rated Professor, herself obese, who represented their (and her) interests all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which declined to hear the airlines appeal, thus making the Transportation authority ruling permanent. Did you know that there is even a NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) that would put NAMBLA to shame?

No matter how many times fatties tell you “I’m not fat, I’m big boned”, this “name calling” and ridiculing of the fat people is actually helping them. The fat of the land are a danger to themselves and others. Though the impulse to shoot the messenger may be natural, without criticism and general opprobrium what incentive would fat people have to shed their pounds? I don’t think our planet is overpopulated but if you do (as most people, actually), perhaps you should first direct your attention to those who although count as one person in their papers take the space and resources of at least two and often times of an entire Ethiopian village.

And this is why I too find the effort made by the fit2fat2fit guy so awesome. He reached his weight pinnacle on November 5, with a 48’ waist and 265 lbs and already, following his regimen, he’s down to 255 lbs and 47’ waist on November 12. It really is simple: drink plenty of water (especially before eating), eat less but well and exercise: stretching & core.

Good luck and keep at it!

Sources / More info: fit2fat2fit, wiki-costo, wiki-tietze, msn-fats, bfb, wired-fats, reu-2, cbc-disabled, 2006-tsa, ec-arhi-photo, wiki-lh, dishw, arhiduke.tv, vansun, denpst, ctv, wiki-naafa, time-naafa, linda-r8