The scariest thing about this article, “5 Baffling Lies Society Told You About Fat People”, and the source, “It’s time to stop telling fat people to become thin.” is how much it eroded my resolve. “Dieting statistically fixes severe obesity with a success rate on par with voodoo and wishful thinking,” and its target link almost unmanned me. It instilled the fear that, regardless of how much weight i lost, i would simply gain it back.

I was 265 on 1/1/15. I am now 186.

The irony of dieting is that the pressure to lose weight is equal or less than the pressure to stay obese. People may pay lip service to your body change. “You look amazing, “Oh my god,” and my personal favorite, “I thought you had cancer,” started to replace, “Hello” and “Sup.” Strangely though, these comments were more prevalent while i was still obese; low 200s.

Once I became, Overweight, those “compliments” changed to “Be careful, you don’t want to get too skinny, now,” “Take a break from that diet shit and have a beer with ya boy,” Oh, you’re still on that diet?,” (Did she just sneer at me?).

I not even going to talk about the war of attrition on twitter between the super powers fat hate and fat acceptance, cause see below. I am not going to talk how vicious the fat acceptance people can be, since it seems insulting “skinny” people for their weight is social acceptable.

What I do want to say is that, while losing weight, I get it from everywhere to stay obese or to stay overweight. This article wasn’t the first article of its kind. It was simply the last straw. (why is it always camel’s back? why not moose’s back? did you know the plural for moose is moose?)

And though, this extremely entertaining article made me finally succumb to peer pressure, I forgive you cause (Cracked Rules! :).

Though, I’ve strayed alot since this article came out, I was lucky, my routine held. I’d gotten so used to watching anime on the stationary bike, and Luffy is about fight Donflamingo so… Plus, the “diet” food I was eating tastes pretty good. 1 order of Spicy Salmon Roll and 1 Yellowtail Roll, yes, please, that Chic-fil-A Cobb Salad, is off the chain even without the pepppers, and you have never had instant noodles unless you’ve had Nongshim’s Shin Black, add some grilled chicken and some vadalia, pft. I was basically ordering the same stuff I’ve been ordering, yet, it wasn’t autopilot, it was because they tasted good. It’s like i turned a corner.

Yet, what finally saved me was The National Weight Control Registry (http://www.nwcr.ws/default.htm). It is a survey, a survey of people who have lost weight and kept it off, and how they did it.

“Given the prevailing belief that few individuals succeed at long-term weight loss, the NWCR was developed to identify and investigate the characteristics of individuals who have succeeded at long-term weight loss.”

I feel like Andy Dufresne and the peer pressure was that shit filled pipe, and metaphorically speaking, with all do respect to the talented E. Fitzgerald, that article was a really big piece of shit on my way to freedom.