One Man’s Struggle and Success Losing Weight

By Gary A. Johnson – Publisher (Black Men In America.com)

Posted: July 30, 2024

Warning: The response to my Facebook post about my weight loss struggle has been somewhat emotional and overwhelming. Some folks have emailed me offline to thank me for putting myself out there and giving them hope. One friend said that she had all but given up on trying to lose weight, but after reading my post, she is going to start walking again, and toss out the junk snacks in her pantry. I received 8 supportive emails over the past 24 hours. I know what it feels like to try and lose weight. In the spirit of helping others, I feel very little risk in sharing the following for the first time.

I’ve been overweight for 20 years. I started gaining weight in 2004. In August of 2011, I hit the 300 lb. mark. In 2016, I weighed 350 lbs. During those 20-years, part of my struggle included poor eating choices, overeating, and not exercising—all of which I own and take responsibility for not handling my business. The biggest barrier to becoming healthy was not understanding that I was an emotional eater. I knew that I was not eating healthy but used food as a coping mechanism. Listening to people who tell you that you are fat and joking about your weight was difficult. I never felt that the comments were purposely mean-spirited to hurt my feelings. I believed that the people making the comments believed they were trying to help me and motivate me to get slimmer.

Most of the negative comments came from my family and friends, including my mother (who reeled off a slew of solid one-liners over the years). Here are a few “fat shaming” comments that I vividly remember from friends and family:

“Man, you getting’ so big we gonna have to put 3 numbers on the back of your jersey.”
“When is the baby due?”
“Looks like you’re in your 3^rd”
“I thought you said you were losing weight. It doesn’t look like it to me.”
“I don’t understand why you are so big. Just stop eating.”

Fortunately for me, the effects of these comments did not have an impact on my self-esteem, but it did add to my existing stress of being a working husband and father with a stressful job and a long commute in rush hour traffic.

As I continued to gain weight, my scale could not keep up with me. On that day in August, when I hit the 300 lbs., I stepped on the scale and looked down to see my weight. The scale beeped and displayed the following: OVER LIMIT. That incident was not enough to make me change my behavior. Rather than work to lose weight, I bought an old fashion medical scale that went up to 400 lbs. (Warning Sign Ignored)

Years ago, I bought a top-of-the-line treadmill. I never thought that I would have to worry about weight-limits. I had no idea that the treadmill had a maximum weight capacity of 275 lbs. Several years later I got on the treadmill, and it reflected a digital readout that told me I was over the weight limit to use it. I ignored that warning and continued to use the treadmill. A few months later, I was walking on the treadmill and started to smell smoke. I burned the motor on the treadmill, and it shut down. You would think that incident would have been enough to make me change my lifestyle. Nope. I did not change my behavior and continued to gain weight eventually reaching 350 lbs. (Warning Sign Ignored)

And Then This Happened

In 2021, I was experiencing occasional heart racing while sitting at my desk or laying down. One of my buddies who had heart surgery DEMANDED that I visit my doctor ASAP. My doctor referred me to a cardiologist. Long story short, between the time of the thermonuclear tests at the hospital and the time to get the results, I was expecting bad news, but I was optimistic that I would be OK. Without getting too deep, the doctor sat me down and said: “You have a blockage on the left side of your heart. We will not be operating on you. Your heart has done what we call a WAZE, like the GPS system and re-routed enough blood to your heart.” WOW! About 20-months later, another blockage was detected on the right side of my heart. Again, no surgery required. I will end the story there by saying: “God is good!”

The Pivotal Moment

And then one day, I had a S.E.E. moment. I was watching my friend and colleague Marc DeSimone on stage teaching a group of managers. We used to watch each other when were booked together by the client. One day Marc spoke about S.E.E., which stands for Significant Emotional Event. The S.E.E. moment that rocked me to the core and put me on track to lose 68 lbs. happened in 2022 while traveling with friends and family. We boarded an airplane and were about to take off. The Flight Attendant was walking down the aisle to ensure that everyone had their seatbelt fastened. There I sat, sweat pouring down my brow trying to get my seatbelt to click. The Flight Attendant saw me struggling and announced rather loudly, “Looks like you’re going to need a seatbelt extender.” I was devastated, embarrassed and humiliated. I looked up at the Flight Attendant. I wanted to say, “Why don’t you get on the P.A. system and tell everybody.” I was too fat for the seatbelt.

That was my S.E.E. moment. I immediately began to reflect on my circumstances. I had to figure out how I got to this point. If I could figure that out and honestly deal with the answers, I believe I would have a chance.

Take Baby Steps Along the Way

My first step to success was intermittent fasting. That was my first measure of success, and it made me feel good. From this point on, I believed that losing weight and keeping it off was possible. I also had CONFIDENCE and was comfortable holding myself accountable. I asked myself: “What might I be doing that could be contributing to my repeated setbacks and subsequent weight gain?” I also had to make myself vulnerable and trust that those folks around me were giving me feedback from a “good place” with “good intentions.” I simply had to accept their feedback. Once that happened, I was able to successfully manage this process of living a healthier lifestyle and losing weight.

I won’t make this post any longer, but as you can see, I figured it out. One of the things I did back then was visit the website “Chubby Travelers.” This site is designed for overweight people. They rank airlines, review airline seats (pitch and width), seatbelt extenders, buses and anything that a fat person would need or should know when traveling.