202

If you look closely at photos from my adolescence, you’ll almost always notice a crease running down the front of my shirt. Hundreds of times a day, I would tug my shirt away from my body, trying to hide the shape of my stomach. When you grow up overweight, your body can feel like an all-consuming problem to solve.

I felt like my body didn’t belong to me. The real me wasn’t overweight. And yet, my weight became my entire identity. By the age of 12, I had cycled through every fad diet the ’90s had to offer: SlimFast, Lean Cuisine, Atkins, Weight Watchers. The answer to all of my problems was always just on the other side of the right diet

I vividly remember a moment in the Burger King drive-thru with my family. My twin sisters—naturally slim—ordered a #6: the fried chicken sandwich with fries, but “no mayonnaise.” It hit me like a revelation: it was the goddamned mayonnaise. I swore it off entirely. I didn’t eat mayonnaise for years. It didn’t help.

At 13, I stepped on the scale and saw the number: 202. It was one of those fork-in-the-road moments—the kind that separates who you’ve always been from who you might become. I had an out-of-body experience in which my subconscious understanding of what needed to happen finally penetrated my consciousness. Over the next six months, I lost 50 pounds. While body transformations aren’t rare, they’re not typically part of a 13-year-old’s story. I knew I had done something important — not just physically, but mentally.

I learned I was capable of doing hard things. More importantly, I learned to trust myself. That moment on the scale didn’t happen in isolation. It was the culmination of every failed attempt, every misguided effort, every diet that didn’t work. I needed all of it. Each failure felt like a dead end at the time but looking back, they were steps forward—I just couldn’t see the direction yet.

I’ve written about consistency on this blog before. It’s not just because consistency itself is a driver of physiological changes but because it’s the only way to discover what actually works for you.

So what’s the lesson? Wait around until divine inspiration strikes? No - or maybe yes- but mostly no. You’re not waiting. You’re doing. The act of doing—of relentlessly pursuing something, no matter how wrong or imperfect your efforts—is the way forward. Strip away expectation. Just show up today. Then show up tomorrow. And I’ll see you at the finish line.