In my last post I talked about assholes I’ve been in the past, which is not to imply that I am in any way not one now…just hopefully a less egregiously one.  I thought on this a bit and realized that there’s something that’s been eating at me for a while now on this topic, though, which I will now impart upon you.

I’ve mentioned in the past how when I went into the hospital for my heart attack I’d been getting back into better shape.  I was down some weight from where I’d been, was starting to fit into a pant-size I hadn’t worn since early High School and was seeing some definition in new places.  I was on the right path, or so I’d thought.

But why did I need to get on that path?  I’d always maintained a fairly stable mass throughout my life; bigger than I wanted but not extreme, varying from ‘thick’ to ‘buff with a bit extra around the middle’.  Since about 23 or 24 I’d exercised pretty regularly and by about 28 I’d cut back all of the worst of my habits, except drinking and smoking.

Back in October of 2012, I decided to quit smoking.  I knew that generally when people quit they gained weight so I prepared accordingly.  I adjusted my diet a bit and started eating healthier.  I started exercising on more of a schedule and kicking up the length and intensity of my bike rides.  I thought I’d done what I needed to and kind of coasted at that pace.

And then one day, about two years later, I walked by a mirror in my room without a shirt on and caught my profile.  I stopped in my tracks.  What the fuck?  I stepped closer to the mirror, sucked in, flexed out, puffed a little bit.  I texted my girlfriend; I’ve always joked about being fat, but this was literal, a little panicked.  ‘Babe, I’m way too fat and I’m sorry.’  From that day I started hitting everything hard again, cut back on drinking (a little), added more stuff to my by then anemic workout routine, ate better.  The pounds started (painfully) slowly coming off and I found myself shaping back to the size I was more used to.

And then, you know, I had a heart attack.

Which spurred this more drastic change at its more drastic pace.

‘What does this have to do with being an asshole?’ you might ask.  I’m glad you did.  Let me tell you.

When I started dropping pounds before the shit hit the fan I started getting a lot of compliments and comments on how good the change was looking.  After the shit, and to this day, I still get a lot of comments and compliments.  One of the things that stands out, though, is how many people have mentioned how they’d noticed how big I’d gotten.  My internal response to this is always the same.  Why the FUCK didn’t you say something?!

I don’t think telling me I was fat would’ve saved me from my fate, and I still stand by the doc saying this was primarily genetic pretty heartily, but it sure would’ve cut the time and effort required to get down to a legitimately healthy shape, and it probably would’ve saved me a few of the residual bits of sag and stretch that come with large amounts of weight loss, which I’m now just stuck with as a fun reminder of the fat-days.  I was at the biggest I’d been in my life at the point I noticed the mirror, by far.

My previous post mentioned my being an asshole because I used to be the guy who lamented political correctness taking over.  Fortunately I can now acknowledge that anything we can do to make the world a better, more understanding, and more easy-to-live-in place is a good step.  I wrote that because I absolutely believe it.  But here’s the ‘but’ that always seems to come from we the privileged.  I absolutely believe we need to be a more sensitive caring world…but I sure as hell wish someone would’ve taken a minute out of their day to tell me I was getting, or had gotten, fat.  Or maybe not just one person but many.  And maybe I would’ve been hurt and offended, and maybe I would’ve said something mean in response, but maybe that also would’ve spurred me toward making a change sooner than later, and maybe..just maybe..that would’ve saved me a little heart-ache (heh).

‘Fat shaming’ is a real thing, and a bad one.  It needs to stop, bottom line.  But here’s the deal:  I was fat.  Not just a little extra around the edges.  I look at pictures of myself from a few years back and I was honestly just fucking fat.  I was big and gross, I looked and felt like shit, I was literally dying of diabetes, and nobody told me, because nobody wanted to be the insensitive one, because we’re told we have the right to love ourselves no matter what the shape or size we occupy is.

Fat people aren’t ugly, or lesser people because they’re fat, and people who say they should work to not be fat might just be assholes, but they also might just be concerned, legitimately so, for that person’s health and well-being.  I can say from experience that sometimes, if the change is gradual enough, you don’t actually notice that you’ve gotten bigger, at least not until it’s too late.  I can also say that sometimes you do notice it, but you don’t have the right push to do anything about it.

So it’s a fine line.  We want people to be happy, and comfortable, but also alive and healthy.  9 out of 10 cases of newly diagnosed Type II Diabetes patients are obese.  Obesity has been definitively linked to Diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes, heart disease, depression, and so on and so on.  When I was taking med classes we had many discussions about how needles were having to be designed to be longer and ambulances bigger to accommodate the growing number of people too large to be serviced by standard means.  Airlines caught a lot of criticism for charging double for people so large they literally took up two seat spaces some years back.  There is an obvious problem that needs to be addressed but the question is how?

Maybe what needs to happen is for the aesthetic element to be removed from the conversation completely.  Maybe we just need to find a way to be conversant without being combative or insulting and, alternately, to receive criticism as constructive rather than offensive.  We need a way to say ‘hey, we’re concerned about your health due to your size’ and not have it mean ‘hey, you’re lesser as a person because you’re bigger’.  I don’t know how that happens, just that it needs to.  I just work here, I don’t set the rules.  All I know is I wish someone would’ve taken the time to fat shame the hell out of me back in, say, mid-2014.  Who knows, if that’d happened maybe this shitty blog might not even exist.