A weight loss journey is accompanied by good, bad, and ugly moments. The good and the ugly moments are easy to discern.
Ugly – Trying to exercise for the first time in a long time in an extra, extra large swimsuit doing water aerobics. You struggle to kick your feet or do simple strides in the pool. Besides the apparent ugly moment (a person in a still too small swimsuit), there are those less apparent (the grimace on your face as you do the extra flutter kick). These early ugly moments soon turn into good moments if you stick with it, but can not discount the early difficult first steps to health.
Good – Being able to complete a 50 mile walk one and a half years later in one day after earlier being able to walk only 50 yards without getting winded. Or trying on your old suit jacket that now could set you aloft if you caught a good wind!
Surely the good outweighs the bad and the ugly after a successful weight loss journey. But even after losing over 170 lbs, there are still some bad moments. Momentarily losing restraint and eating an extra burger is an obvious one. One that is not so obvious is the issues you have going through the body scanner at airports! The first thing that you need to do after buying a new wardrobe (or regaining your old, see me in my 30 old flight jacket below) is TSA pre-check. Prior to getting TSA pre, everytime I walked through the scanner, I had to be patted down because it looked like I had something hidden in my stomach area. Indeed, on one occasion, the TSA agent actually exclaimed “You are lit up like a Christmas tree!”. Then came the bad (or perhaps the ugly). I said yes, I know. I lost a 170 lbs and can’t help that you all cannot adjust your sensors. Did not go over well but I submitted to the pat down and the TSA agent and I had a good laugh later. And then I registered for TSA pre. Even with precheck you still at random times have to go through the scanner. That was what happened two weeks ago and again I lit the thing up! But this time it was a Good memory of how far I come.
The moral of the story, a weight loss journey is a series of good, bad and ugly moments. Endure the bad and ugly and revel in the good! And get TSA pre-check 🙂
Weight Loss and Leadership 