Ftrain, by Paul Ford

I had a dream last night, said a coworker. You were showing me something on the computer, and you were very thin.

Well that's good, I thought. It means I'll keep my job for at least another year.

Two thoughts.

First is that I have more energy lately. But just lately. Before that I had less, because I couldn't moderate my energy level by eating what I wanted. Perhaps it was the perception of less energy that has changed, but it's only in the last few weeks that I am not tired every day by the early evening. It is coincidental to the moderate weightlifting, but I don't know if there's correlation.

Second is that while I can now look at myself in the mirror, and lift and squeeze my gut--the giant pink-yellow calf's-tongue that hangs off my abdomen--without shame, I find it hard to look at old pictures of myself with anything approaching acceptance.

It's a sad moment of any fatness-progress narrative--when the fattie, newly shed of pounds and surrounded by approving slends, looks back at old photos and says "I can't believe I used to be that way." This is the fantasy of rebirth, the baptism of thinness washing away all old sins. It's very Christian, weight loss. And unscientific. The old you is right there in all those pictures. The old you is the new you.

Again and again: "I can't believe I used to be that way." But I can believe. Willing disregard of your just-prior self is reckless and stupid. As I do this, of course, I am going back to my old blog Ftrain and editing and restructuring, redesigning, for relaunch in February. A non-event to anyone but me. But in the process I am revisiting all thirteen of the last years. There's no hiding from my own failings.

Weight: 295 lbs