My eyes being small, I see a valley laying as it lays Whenever I encounter valleys daying through my days Its hoary sides, persistent stream, are constant in my view As I am born the valley's there, and unchanged when I'm through. The valley, being giant, doesn't see me here at all, The kind of big that doesn't feel the passage of the small. Eternally it's writhing, growing, sinking, cutting through, Becoming for the sport of just becoming, as they do. It must have been quite curious when Man set out to place A metal staple 'cross its span, a stickwork on its face To capitalize upon a stillness which it clearly lacks, Assume there's safety now in sending trains across its back: "A foolish thing! In just a couple eons they'll have learnt They've built a solid edifice on roiling, living dirt! The track will fall into the stream. The valley will be free. They'll learn. A couple million years, a moment if you're me."
Change happens so gradually. It can be unbearable, waiting for change to happen over the course of lots of time.
I dream that when I reach my weight loss goal, when my waist is finally fifteen percent thinner than its peak, when I sink back beneath 200 somehow, there’ll be a graduation ceremony. I’ll take the stage shirtless and unbothered, and my gastroenterologist will be on the dais and he’s going to hand me a hefty scroll. And if I unroll it I’ll see everything I ever thought to myself about my weight, my fitness, my diet, my torso. I’ll be able to see all the things I’ve been saying to myself that I finally acted upon and got where I thought I needed to be and now I’ll never have to think about these things anymore, now that I’ve lost the weight.
It’ll say look at me now. It’ll say remember that time at the academic camp when the pretty girl on the swing asked why my boy boobs are bigger than all the girls’ boobs at the camp, remember all the times I went swimming with a shirt on, all the times I wore the shirt I’d worn in gym to the rest of my classes rather than changing out of it in front of the other guys, the time a friend was DIY silk screening the shirt I’d been wearing and he laughed and told me to flex my muscles. I remembered these monthly, it’ll say.
It’ll have the 250 reddit comments I’ve read about the keto diet. 150 comments about the Mediterranean diet. Abs diet. Atkins Diet. Intermittent fasting. Broccoli Diet. The Bang Bang Servo Diet. Weight Watchers. Remember when the guy in college recommended they put me in to play football because I’m getting pretty big.
Remember dreading romance because I might have to be seen by another person.
Remember my step-mom telling me to eat, eat before I go back to my mother and she sees how thin I’ve gotten and assumes they’d starved me. That was sixth grade, a hundred pounds ago. Remember the holy trinity of my return to the States: microwave pizza, ramen, and macaroni and cheese, with disgust, with longing.
Remember doing pretty good with barbell training in my early thirties until doing squats made my right knee hurt. Remember doing pretty good with burpees in the basement for like two weeks until doing push-ups made my right shoulder hurt. Those things still hurt, it’ll remind me. Remember also the rowing machine still in the basement, its clear water turned brown and gray, like city slush in a salad spinner. Here it’ll have a bullet list of just the repeated phrase “10,000 steps.” This list alone will be 380 pages long.
It’ll have a math section. Divide a 24-minute treadmill workout into 3-minute songs. Into 8-minute thirds. Into 4-minute sixths. Remember I told myself, as each subsection of a 24-minute workout ends and a new one begins, that I just survived another one. That I looked at a fresh new year comprised of 12 months and told myself I have a multiple of 12 to lose in pounds, a multiple of 6 to lose in inches around your waist this year, and was satisfied that it’s so convenient. It’s so simple! Subtract the weight of an Olympic bar from the amount of plates you’re supposed to be able to shoulder press by Monday.
It’ll have the first 120 pages of Bright Line Eating. The first 120 pages of The Hungry Brain. Most of Starting Strength. A shelf’s worth of books, bookmarked with good intentions, that no one knows are already in here when they are giving you advice. The first 50% of 480 YouTube videos about how to reach your goals. The first 35% of 840 YouTube videos about how to stay motivated and plan your day and keep a journal and read more and remember what you read better and how to let go.
You told yourself no sugar, no flour, no snacks, no seconds, today is the day, then had a little bowl of Wheat Thins and cheese before dinner, and a couple of Milano cookies after bedtime, like a little secret, and it weighed you down with guilt. On days when the family was out of the house you raided the Halloween/Christmas/Easter candy. A whole bag of Skittles and a fun size Milky Way up in the office, door closed, the spent wrappers crumpled up within a ball of printer paper so it won’t be spotted in the trash can. It’ll say remember feeling like you of all people earned this today. Remember each time it was like a perfectly executed heist. Remember thinking that this might be an indicator of a food addiction. 200 reddit comments about food addiction. A WebMD article about binge eating. This was just days ago.
You’ve crossed these arms while the girls were brushing their teeth to see if your reflection in the mirror looks muscular.
It’ll quote back to me everything I’ve said about my own body in front of my kids. Every time I divulged some detail about my new lifestyle plan to my kids. Every time my kids told me my big belly is the best for taking a nap on. A snapshot of every time I sat at the dinner table behind a truly gigantic bowl of ranch dressing blessed salad while they ate burgers and dogs.
The names of all the apps. StrongLifts, MyFitnessPal, MY Weight, Hevy, SmartGym, FitBod, Runna, Couch To 5K, Map My Run, Noom, Weight Watchers again, Lotus Flow, Streaks, 100 Pushups, that spreadsheet I kept comparing my weight every morning to where my weight should be if my journey to my goal weight was linear, HeadSpace, Calm, FitMind, Breethe.
An inventory of shirts whose hems don’t fall below my pants pockets because of the width and depth of my trunk. XL shirts where I can still see my belt with the shirt buttoned up. Pants that have split. Cumulative minutes, perhaps hours, that I’ve held my breath so I might bend over and tie a shoe.
I’m not the biggest person I know, it’ll tell me I’ve thought lots of times. 20 reddit comments about body dysmorphia.
Chairs cracked and collapsed under the weight of me hilariously. A diagnosis of prediabetes in 2018. The joke that everyone who doesn’t have diabetes is technically prediabetic. A diagnosis of fatty liver disease in 2023. The joke that fatty liver disease is a rude way to tell a fatty that he has a liver disease.
The quiet contemplation of GLP-1 drugs. The dread of ending up injecting myself regularly for the rest of my life in a quest to avoid having to inject myself for the rest of my life.
All the times I’ve remembered Grandma being injected at the end of her life. Her missing fingers. Her sneaking candy. One uncle’s uncle having a glass of wine and a Hershey Kiss at a Christmas close to the end with a wink and a smile. Another uncle who turned it all around through diet alone.
Big people who are happy. Big men I’ve seen swimming with no shirt, playing with their kids, happy. The miraculous availability of adult rash guards.
Bakers who are thin. Men I’ve known who eat and eat and never talk or think about cardiovascular exercise and never gain an ounce. The Sicilians who consume only oil and cigarettes and sardines and live to 105.
A hundred five times it didn’t work again. A hundred five times who do I think I am. A hundred five times forget it. A hundred four times this time it’ll work.
A scroll yards long. It’ll have a seal at the end. “Burn Here” it’ll say. And it’ll burn, the whole history of my thoughts about this one thing, so quickly, with no smoke or danger, smelling like cookies in the oven, in front of me and everyone that’s ever beheld me, and we’ll be done, and it’ll be gone, impossible to even recall like a dream upon waking. I’ll think today is the first day. I’ll think this half-month is the first twenty-fourth of the first year of the rest of the years of my life.
Congratulations, I’ll say. This is Phil.
