The Fat Diaries: My Weight-Loss Partner

I never expected to meet the man I was going to marry at age 20. Marriage is something we think we’ll contemplate when we’re older and wiser, like 25. After dating my husband Joe for a month or two, I pretty much knew this was the guy I wanted to be around for the rest of my life. Now what does all this have to do with my eternal struggle against my weight?

Everything.

We always contemplate weight-loss as the triumph of self over temptation. We assume that will-power, sacrifice, knowledge and the desire to better ourselves are the only key components. Reliance on outside sources is seen as a sign of weakness. To a tiny extant that’s true. No person will ever strive to better themselves if they don’t want to.

That being said, however there is nothing more vital in this age of the self-sufficient loner than support. I don’t mean people to remind you how many calories that brownie sundae has or people who weigh themselves weekly and check in with you. I mean real support.

I only get the best support from Joe. When we got married, I was 220 lbs. He had made it abundantly clear that as long as I was healthy, my weight didn’t matter to him. I was lovely and loveable, and even (dare I say it) sexy to him, because I was in a happy spot. Frequent walking in college meant that I was exercising and while my eating habits were a little careless, I wasn’t eating an entire pizza in one sitting.

Joe’s love and acceptance of my body was unconditional so that in my darkest moments I was still able to sense that and draw comfort from it.

It was less than one year and forty pounds later, however — when I was eating boxes of Twinkies, baking batches of cookies for myself and crying constantly on the couch — that we realized that I was neither healthy nor happy.

There were no, “I’m really worried about your weight,” speeches, or “maybe you should cut back on the cake a little” comments from Joe. It was simply, “we need to find a way to help you get healthy again.” And I understood. It wasn’t only about the weight, it was about being depressed and completely adrift. I don’t think I ever got defensive about it, or doubted that he still loved me at all. He was worried about me, and I was scared too.

It was Joe who found the nutritionist’s number in the church flier. Being a non-driver, he arranged for me to be dropped off for my appointments. He upheld every rule about food I made, and applauded me when I met my goals. And through it all, he kept giving me reinforcement. Even if it was as simple as a hug, or a smile or a “you’re looking really healthy these days,” he found ways to make it pay off more than the numbers on the scale did.

Now some mornings, I catch him watching me while he dresses and smiling.  I ask, “what?” and he just grins goofily. “WHAT?” I insist.

He then says, “I barely recognize you sometimes. You’ve gotten so skinny.”

My first thought is that he’s full of it until I catch sight of myself in the mirror and have another one of those double-takes. Yep. That’s really me in there. No double chin, no four stomachs, no dimples. As I look back on this journey of mine I realize that it wasn’t a one-woman journey. He was there with me the whole time. He wasn’t carrying me on his shoulders, or cracking a whip. He was just there, a constant presence and a hand to hold.

Behind every strong woman, is a guy that’s saying, “I love you no matter what.”

Happy Anniversary, Joe.