The Aha! Moment

There was a post on the WeightWatchers.ca message boards the other day that got me to thinking. The question raised was this: what was your "aha!" moment when you realized you needed to lose weight?

For me, there was never any defining moment. There was lots of really uncomfortable things I put up with, but none of them prompted me to do anything. They just kept collecting and building up in the corner of my mind as things to shy away from because they were too shameful to address. I just told myself that I was "okay" the way I was and that I was destined to be overweight for life.

So what was it that prompted me to finally act? It wasn't when I couldn't fit into the chairs at my insurance broker's (I call them "skinny ass" chairs). It wasn't when a coworker's wife pointedly asked me if I had diabetes (because I was overweight like her). It wasn't when a ski shop employee told me he couldn't fit me in a boot because my legs were "too fat." And it wasn't when the driver's license clerk read me the riot act because I hadn't changed the weight on my renewal and I wasn't getting away with saying I was thin when I obviously wasn't (I didn't mean to get away with anything, it was an honest mistake).

Aside from the fact that there are an awful lot of really tactless people and chairs out there, none of them alone prompted me to act. I started Weight Watchers because I felt I had to in order to accomplish something else. Not because I thought I needed to lose weight. I know that sounds kinda weird, but there it is.

I know that many of us have had that one crystal-clear defining moment that prompted them to act and to see them through their journey. Not me. I just showed up at a Weight Watchers meeting and kept going. In fact, now that I look back on things, I only really looked ahead a few steps at a time. I still do that now. Occasionally I'll pop my head up and look at the big picture, but the rest of the time I take it day by day.

As it turns out, I know now that I did need to lose weight and that I still need to lose weight. It was never okay for me to resign myself to a lifetime of unhappiness. And perhaps that's my aha! moment right there.