This is probably opening up a can of worms but, I feel I need to address, at least a little, my use of the word “fat”. I’ll do my best to keep it brief and if you dgaf about this kinda thing you can scroll down until you see pics and that’s when the thank you notes start.
I have been a large human being for most of my adult life. I was not a heavy child really. I played basketball, dabbled in football, got into paintball in middle school, basically did active things. I was just, big. High school, I played some football and paintball, then I got a drivers license. Then I got a job and decided I liked money more than sports and quit wrestling, football, etc after my sophomore year. I continued to eat, however, as though I was still playing those sports. Consequently, I became “fat” for the first time in my life as a junior. It turns out, if you go out to eat every single day for lunch, and eat at China Buffet and various other restaurants on the weekends you can really pack on some pounds.
My senior year in high school, I lost all the weight over the course of about 4 months. It was insanely unhealthy. A friend that was a grade ahead of me graduated and joined the military so my lunch buddy was gone. My solution was to just not eat lunch. The aforementioned job was working at a Subway. That diet that the fat pedophile Jared was on? Yeah, I did that shit several years before him. I went from about 260 to 180 simply skipping lunch and eating 6″ subway sandwiches.
The climb back towards the mid 200’s was slow and steady. As my 20’s progressed I discovered alcohol. My metabolism slowed, my caloric intake increased, I got heavy again. This began a long period of fluctuation.
That brings us up to now. I’ve called this blog series “Getting less fat”. People are sensitive about that term. Fat shaming is a thing. Positive body image is a thing. Unrealistic expectations, especially for women, are a thing. If I’ve offended anyone in anyway by calling myself fat, I’m sorry. That’s never been my intention.
Everyone deals with life in their own way. I’ve always been a pretty self deprecating person. It’s an easy way to make a joke and it steals the thunder from anyone else who’d like to poke fun at your short comings by doing it first. I could probably write an entire series of blogs about my own body image/self esteem/etc issues and what me making fun or bullying myself means. But the bottom line is this, I was fat. I didn’t carry extra weight because of bad genes or slow metabolism or any of those reasons. I ate far more than any normal person should. And I ate garbage. And I didn’t exercise enough. And my use of the term fat is talking about me and me alone. Someone else my size, build, whatever may be perfectly healthy at any of the weights I’ve been in the past 9 months. I was not. I. Was. Fat.
That said, I know that some folks can have a hard time dealing with their own shit when other people out there do so in a negative manner. So while many folks have told me this blog is inspiring, I want to tell anyone out there who it has NOT been inspiring to, I’m sorry. This blog ultimately has been an outlet for me to deal with my problems. I’ve touched on the fact that weight is only one of the visible ones but, know that I struggle with the expectations, both self imposed and what the outside world thinks I should look like. It doesn’t make it ok but, hopefully you can realize that this is just my way of dealing and I mean no harm with my word choice.
Alright, let’s move on to some quick thank yous…
This is Dan. He’s been coming into the shop for a few years now. I rode with him a few times on Monday Rides. This year, we started riding together a bit outside that setting. Aside from being a super smart scientist dude, Dan is an animal on the bike. He went through a weight loss transformation of his own over the past few years and that was certainly an inspiration on my journey. On the bike, he always seems to have a smile on his face, he’s down to try all different forms of riding, and when you ride with people that are just plain stronger than you it pushes you to ride harder. He’s currently crushing miles on Zwift but, I’m hopefully he’ll come out and bury me a time or two on the fatbike this winter. Thanks for being awesome, Dan. Can’t wait to log miles with you next year and watch you crush the Men’s B cross field from the back of the pack!
I could write countless posts about folks like Dan and the people I talked about in my other blog. But I’ll wrap it up with a bike club that motivated me to get out and get after it on more than one occasion this year.
If you’ve seen some crazy Oakley’s or dudes lifting weights in Zubaz or some butt cheeks hanging out at Overlook this year, you know the Rattlesnake 1000 crew. It’s a group of folks who just like to get out and get after it on the bike and know that cycling shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Three members of the group in particular motivated me on a regular basis.
Mike, like Dan, has been coming to the shop for years now.
He’s one of those dudes that just gets ‘it’ about bikes. Always cheerful, even when he had broken parts needing to be fixed. Always appreciative of our efforts. And always too generous with beer tips! As a rider, he was out crushing miles on his fatbike on sloppy, cold, gross days where I didn’t even want to commute, let alone go ride. And when time was apparently short for him, he still got out and used what time he had to the fullest. Dude was an inspiration to just get after it all year long.
Willy apparently rediscovered his love of biking this year and just flat got after it.
While his love of music is pretty awesome in its own way, his crushing of miles this year was what inspired me to throw a leg over the bike. I remember seeing a ride he did down Lookout Pass thinking, “my god he’s a crazy person, that’s awesome!” Any time I saw him on the bike, be it at the Hell Ride or post RATPOD he always had a kind word to say. And like with Mike, seeing him use small windows of opportunity to their fullest was motivation to do the same.
And last, but never least, Jason.
Following him on Strava was probably one of the best things I did for my motivation. If the sun rose, Jason seemed to be riding. Big rides too! To PBurg via Hamilton, to Hamilton and back crazy early in the morning, when it was blazing hot out, Hell Ride, the Roubaix, RATPOD, the Trail series, it seemed like there was not an organized ride happening that he wasn’t part of and if an organized ride wasn’t happening he was out getting it solo. And let me be clear, he’s not one of these waifish little cyclist stereotypes. He could crush miles then crush his enemies and see them driven before him. As a large fella, seeing other large dudes live a healthy active lifestyle was huge.
I could go on and on about the various people that motivated and inspired me over this journey. Hopefully, I’ll be better about letting people know going forward instead of having to write these blog posts and hoping they’ll see it. I’ve got one left in the “Getting less fat” series. It’ll bring us up to present day and then, hopefully I’ll keep writing about how I’m staying fit and what that takes.
To all the folks I’ve mentioned in these posts, thank you. Sincerely. While I did get where I am through my own efforts, your encouragement and inspiration made it a hell of a lot easier.
Thanks for reading everyone. See you in the last chapter sometime in the next few days!
*First photo is mine, others were stolen via very low tech means(screen shot) from the folks I mentioned. Hope they don’t mind.
Danny Hathaway 