94.5 kilograms.
Those were the figures on the weighing scale that made me wake the f*ck up one fine Saturday morning in December 2006.
I had just returned from a fulfilling holiday in China with my mother, and was casually browsing through our vacation photographs when it suddenly hit me…
I’m damn freakin fat.
No… wait…I was much worse than that.
I was damn freaking OBESE.
Back then, I didn’t really know what happened or why it happened, because I was actually doing quite well- in terms of battling the bulge that is.
It’s when I look back at the possible reasons and causations of this undesirable trend that it suddenly hits me- smack in the middle of my face.
Women.
The one blame for all of men’s problems worldwide… or at least mine anyway…
Well, before you go all Rosie O’Donnell on my behind, kindly allow me to explain…
it all began in my formative years in Secondary School.
Growing up, I had always been a morbidly obese kid.
In secondary2, my waistline was a flourishing size 42. That’s right…a freaking size 42 waist.
You know, I probably would have exploded into oblivion had it not been for the charming creatures of our universe known to many of us as women.
In my growing up years, I’d never had a girlfriend… which wasn’t that hard to believe at all- I was damn freakin fat. My nickname at that time, used on me from family to classmates to neighborhood friends, was Fatboy. And it was Fatboy for a reason… and a damn good one at that.
But it was this very reason- the part of not having a girlfriend, that sort of made me ornately conscious of my weight, and subsequently resulted in me putting some form of effort into my day to day activities that ultimately changed me for the better (or so I thought).
There was a girl, as there always is; that I had my first crush on sometime in late secondary 2/ early Secondary 3; whom I owe much gratitude to- even though she did absolutely nothing to make me take my baby steps to “acceptable-weight-ness”. You see- I’ve never ever spoken to her before, barring that one time when I said good morning at assembly- which cannot really be counted because the words that came out of my mouth were so barely audible that even the sharpest dogs would not have probably caught what I was trying to say.
But yes… I had really wanted to shed off the kilos just so that I could have the confidence to speak to her, and it was strange for my classmates to suddenly see the fattest kid in school watch his diet, attend TAF club regularly, and actually put in effort during P.E.
Strange Times it most truly was.
As expressed earlier, I never really did manage to talk to her, such was the lack of self-belief and confidence in overweight children… which was a shame really; secondary school life would have been so different and a lot more gratifying had I actually had a girlfriend to spend my time with, then again, it would have been pretty stressful to have a pubescent and hormonal young lady to spend my teenage years with.
A year passed and I was still overweight but only slightly… it was time for high school in Perth, sometime in 2004, and that’s when I fell head over heels with my very first love of sorts (more like a massive intense crush- because the feelings never were mutual- but I was still mad for her back then), well this REALLY made me watch my diet- I mean SERIOUSLY.
I drank water instead of soft drinks and juices- chose the grilled option instead of fried, cut supper off completely, and I also ate a lot less during meal times.
It also made me start exercising a lot more, and I was truly inspired to lose all the excess weight I had, like REALLY.
Somehow or another things never really did work out- oh “there’s such thing as mutual feelings”, “I think you’re getting the wrong idea” “I don’t like you in that way”(the freakin story of my life- a walking cliché of failures and disasters I know right?)
And so I saw myself glide through to university at an almost OK weight- I didn’t force food down my throat as I was too depressed to do so, instead I focused my angst and melancholy into more physically driven activities, which was hugely beneficial- unlike what was about to happen to me a good year and a half later. Oh boy was I not ready for that one.
When I entered University in 2005 at 17 years old, I was about two or three kilo’s over the general acceptable level, but hey, there was still some form of fitness inside of my system and nothing was gonna stop me at that point in time… oh, nothing that is, except for a girl.
A girl who truly tore me apart, limb by limb, piece by piece… till I was no more.
She was the craziest person that I had ever met in my life, and till today- I’ve never met anyone who is as much of a lunatic as she ever was- and yet it was a strangely “tolerable” kind of lunacy- the type that makes you wonder why you’re even there, but somehow or another, you just end up “tolerating” it, like a drug. There’s just no explaining these things… women.
Well anyway, it was after that intensely heartbreaking experience with her that made me lose the plot completely. It didn’t sober me up, it absolutely drowned me.
Like abso-freakin-lutely devastated kind of drowning.
I sank myself in food everyday; gulping and shoving and heaving and thrusting all sorts of foods down my throat- nutritious value or not, I just ate and ate and ate and ate – and although I did play soccer and cycled occasionally, the grotesque amount of food that I consumed simply could not be burnt off adequately by whatever means of physical movement that I chose to implement.
I’m not going to go into the details of however much I ate during the year of food induced lunacy, but let’s just say that Three Packets of Indomee was considered a snack… that sums it all up perfectly. (Hmm… I miss Indomee- the ultimate University Food for University Students)
But yes, that was when I reached my zenith of obesity.
December 2006, just before the start of my final year at University. I was a walking boulder. It wasn’t much fun to be honest.
And yet, after all that happened, who would have predicted that it actually took another girl to make me wake the f*ck up again.
Yes. it was because of another woman.
That and also because it suddenly hit me that in about a year or so I would be enlisting into National Service, and I did not want to be that UNFIT guy in Army Daze- yes Sheikh Haikel I’m talking about you. (I was the last batch of boys allowed to defer my NS for University- i.e Study first then Serve)
So yes, at the end of it all, there wasn’t really a single reason for the drastic change- more like a combination of some inalienable facts and realities.
More specifically, that I had to lose weight because…
#1. I didn’t want to be a rotund and corpulent fella languishing away during my national service
#2. Women. or lack thereof.
What can I say besides the fact that “Motivation is key.”
I upped my game during the final year of university and when the time came for me to enlist- I actually scored a gold in the “NAPFA Test”, allowing me to save 2 months of National Service.
(I like to call this my “prime!”)
The drive, the verve, the absolute adrenaline in your veins has to be fueled by something.
A goal, a destination, a reach, an objective.
What do you want to achieve? Who do you want to be?
I asked myself those questions every single day… until I finally did reach my end point.
A ridiculously scrawny and undernourished little fella. Boy is this NOT a good look. (I was at my lowest point- BMT- weighing in at a grand total of 57.2kilograms… you do the math)
Somehow along the way though things sort of took another cruel twist. I dislocated my kneecap and ruptured a few ligaments while playing football, and it all went downhill from there.
But that my friends, is another story, for another time.
Have fun looking for that motivation.
xxx
ON AIR: Weeknights, 9pm – Midnite
FOLLOW: Twitter.com/jeraldjustin
LIKE: Facebook.com/power98online
