Big

I’ve always been big. Physically, I’m a very broad young man, to put it lightly. My height hovers just under 6 feet, while, in the past year, I’ve weighed anywhere between 240 and 280 pounds, so I’m certainly not a little guy, and I never really was. But that’s not the only big thing I am. To my sisters, I’ve always been a “big brother.” My mother always called me here “Big guy.” When I played football in highschool, I was “Big Jeff.( To be fair, this was much to my chagrin. While team-mates were afforded such nicknames as Dozer and Tank, I always felt I was saddled with a far less creative callsign, and even then, it wasn’t particularly original, as “Big Josh,” graduated a year before me. Ultimately, it seemed to be less of a nickname, and more a reminder, as though when coach said “C’mon Big Jeff!’ what he meant was “C’mon Jeff, don’t forget that you’re bigger than he is, go out there and get it done.)” And not just big physically either. People say I have a big voice, and a big personality, a big brain, and a big heart. I always find the dichotomy between all these definitions of big hard to deal with. In some cases, being big was a good thing, while in others, big was the opposite of what I wanted.

To date, my biggest issue with “Big” has always been my weight.  For as long as I can remember, I complained to my parents about how I wanted to be skinny and healthy and sexy. And they did the best they could to help motivate me to be more active, and to eat healthy, but the picky habits I picked up as a kid (There was a period of a few months where my diet consisted exclusively of tater tots and PB&J on toast) and my love for playing video games always seemed to defeat these attempts o change my habits. Now to be fair, it hasn’t always been such a bad thing to be big. I was never bullied as a kid, and I honestly believe it had something to do with the fact that for the better part of my elementary and middle school career I could have lifted, and indeed in some cases tossed, any one of a number of my classmates.  It certainly made me a better lineman in football, although I always struggled because, determined as I might be, I lacked athleticism. Not really a problem, considering I never really wanted to be a professional athlete, and, in all honesty, I was likely in the best shape of my life so far during my various football seasons.

Lately, however, my weight has become much more of a problem. The freshman 15 was certainly no myth, and for a kid who struggled with weight before going to college, the long stressful days and all-you-can-eat dining for every meal really took its toll. After a while, I got frustrated, and tried to make a solid gym routine for myself, but the craziness that is college life got in the way.

Over the summer, I again made being healthy a priority. I was living in a frat just off campus, as I was working in a research lab at the school, and needed to be in close proximity.  My diet was whatever I could afford, usually hotdogs and dry cereal, so I certainly wasn’t eating too much, and after nearly 3 weeks of waking up and running every morning, I was really feeling good about myself. However, after a project at the lab kicked into overdrive, and I found myself working many more than 8 hours a day, exercise took a back seat to desperate scrounging 6 hours of sleep before returning to work.

As this summer rolled into the beginning of this year, my health was certainly on my mind, but I never really did anything about it. Things were even crazier than my freshman year, and I was content to eat, sleep, and try to find a few minutes for socializing in between all my obligations. But then, Christmas break started, and for some reason, during that break, I found cause to step on a scale. I couldn’t believe it, but I had reached 280 pounds. 40 more than I had ever been, and 50 more than I usually answered on any given form that was concerned with my weight.

Needless to say, I was fervent with my new year’s resolution of “get healthy… again,” and thanks to a few friends who join me each time I go to the gym, I had, until very recently, done a very good job getting healthy, and had dropped nearly 10 pounds since Christmas. However, in the week leading up to this break, I found myself swamped with mid-terms, and missed out on almost half a dozen gym days. It’s been well over 2 weeks since I’ve exercise din earnest, not to mention the fast food and snacks I find myself eating during this vacation, more out of boredom than hunger. What really frustrates me at this point is the fact that half my brain is logically aware that the newly renovated exercise room is only a few steps down the hall, and being that I’m home alone most of the day, there isn’t exactly a queue for its use.

But then there’s depressed, bored, tired me, that’s just as happy to stay in his pj’s and play video games all day. Which is funny, really, because video games are really a part of a much larger related issue. I’m a sucker for progress. I remember vividly a time when I could see the silhouette of a 6-pack showing through my stomach, some feeble outline that hinted at the idea that there were abdominal muscles buried beneath my jiggling belly. And I’ve never been more motivated to work out in my life.

That exhilaration I feel in knowing I’ve made progress towards something, that I’ve accomplished a goal is really what I’m after, and usually, with exercise I don’t get that. But I do with videogames. A few hours of button pressing, and my silly little on-screen man gets a shiny new sword, or the two characters that I’ve watched dance about each other with insufferable angst finally fall in love, all thanks to me. I don’t always know where to find this same feeling in many of the aspects of my life, especially with things like exercise and eating healthy. It’s much easier to stimulate my pleasure centers now with a tasty treat, than to attempt to sate them with the far-off promise of confidence and self-worth, locked away behind many a locked door, which I only have a chance to open with a great deal of will-power and motivation.