Everyone has a trigger - a point in time where you decide to finally take action. For some, it’s a trip to the doctor’s office. For others, it could be a special occasion where you want to look your best - a wedding, a reunion, or a beach vacation.
For me, it was one of the socially awkward situations that fat people often find themselves in.
So there I was, breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. I had just “sprinted” (or as some might call it, “rumbled”) through McCarran International Airport to catch the last flight back to the East Coast on a leisure trip to Las Vegas. My bags were strapped around my chest and digging into my ample man cleavage. You could hear the groans and huffs directed at the late arriving passenger as soon as I got on the jetway. Those quickly turned into eye rolls and squished faces as they saw my sweaty, fat self turn the corner and board the plane. I struggled to fit my bags, my gut and my rump down the extremely narrow aisle (it was later I realized that the aisle was so narrow because half the plane was as fat as I was, they just weren’t sweating because they were on time). I arrived at my row to find that I was rewarded with a 757 middle seat…a fate worse than death for a fat man. Not only that, but the entire plane is waiting for me to stow my bags and get seated so we can make the long trek home.
So as I struggle to fit my bag under the seat, I could feel the eyes focused on my big, fat sweaty butt bent over, undoubtedly brushing the shoulder of the person across the aisle. Unfortunately, my rear was so big that I had kind of lost feeling in the farthest reaches of it, so if I was hitting into something I didn’t really know it. I got my bags wedged in under the seat in front of me, and now it was time for the fun part - wedging my rump into the seat.
I could see the lucky person in the window seat fidgeting as I entered the row, staring out the window blankly with a scowl on her face. She knew that, not only was she going to be sitting next to a sweaty, fat guy for 4+ hours, but that if I needed some extra space I would most likely be leaning in her direction, as she was smaller in stature than the woman occupying the aisle seat.
I get into the seat and struggle with pulling the seatbelt out from under my weighty butt. The entire time I can see the beads of sweat flying to and fro and landing on the floor and seat in front of me - enough to make even me throw up in my mouth just a little. I am muttering to myself, praying that I won’t need a seatbelt extension. Luckily I have enough abdominal strength to suck in just enough to get the seatbelt around me. When I breathe out again and try to sit back, I can feel the vinyl armrests digging into my sides and the cold sweat-soaked shirt slowly sticking to my skin all up and down my back. The woman on the aisle gave me a look of disgust as she sat back down, Mrs. Glass House that she was.
As the captain made his announcements, I could feel my heart rate return to “normal” and could also feel the rash forming on the sides of my gut from the relentless armrests - I certainly had a case of the Dunlops (my gut had “dun-lopped” over the armrests!)
Luckily, the woman on the window had a bladder like a camel, because I closed my eyes and fell asleep - probably filling the entire plane with animal-like snores from the excess neck fat I was carrying. I didn’t want to risk being awake when the snack cart came around.
What was, in reality, 15 minutes from the time I got through airport security to the time I was seated, felt like an eternity to me. That happens when you are navigating through a most dreaded experience.
That was my watershed - or in this case, my fatshed - moment. It was then that I admitted to myself that I was fat and needed to do something about it.
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Matt Lisk is a fat loss expert who has used his knowledge to lose over 70 pounds of body fat, reduce his body fat percentage to under 10% and to resolve a variety of health issues he was experiencing. He is the author of Lean State University’s Fat Loss 101 Newsletter.
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