I’ve been a fat kid my entire life. It’s weird that people are meeting me now, sexy as fuck, and have never met me when I was the Chinese Michelin Man, looking like a bbq pork bun straight out the steamer. I always knew why I was chubby – I loved eating more than I loved moving (and also more than I loved attracting woman). My lifestyle supported the weight though, with my parents being restaurant owners, food was always available. When growing up, I played offensive line in football and front row in rugby – so being fat was just kind of par for the course. In fact, I wanted to get bigger so that I could play my position better. But then I stopped competing so I decided to lose weight.
However, there was one moment that made me really want to lose the weight. I was about 200lbs, sitting in my room, 23 years old, scrolling the ‘gram. I was seeing all these attractive women on my Instagram explore page. I then put my phone in sleep and saw my reflection. Double chin ass, heavy breathing ass, Pillsbury NO Boy looking ass. I guess the contrast between the cute girl on my phone screen and my reflection made me realize that I need to lose some weight to look better. At that moment, I realized that I was not my type’s type and that I had to lose a little (well, a lot) of weight to put myself in the running. So I did it. Over 6 months, I ate nothing but canned tuna and mayo, I ran lots, and I lost 65 lbs. I do think that being a former high level athlete, it made it easier because the level of discipline was already there. Losing that weight that fast was not hard for me.
I remember around this time last year, I got dinner with some friends that I hadn’t seen in awhile. My one good friend Ziad, who literally last saw me at 205lbs thought it was pretty cool that I look the way that I do and made such an impressive change. When I told him the above as to why I made the decision, he said something that I never thought of:
“It sucks that you had to make such a drastic change just to feel like girls will like you more when you’re already such a good guy.”
I went home after dinner and thought about it. I had never even once thought that my personality was the reason why a woman would like me. Looking back, I guess it makes sense. All the girls that did find me attractive, liked me for who I was. You could even say that maybe women nowadays only find me attractive because my jawline could cut diamonds but even so, it’s a little sad isn’t it? Like I spent all this time trying to be funny, learning how to play music, developing a little charisma – but at the end of the day, I never felt that attractive because I didn’t look a certain type of way. And if we’re being honest, I can’t say that my personality has really changed that much, I still feel like the fat kid who was the sidekick to my more handsome friends. Maybe I’ll never be happy with how I look.
Don’t get me wrong, I still feel more confident in who I am today but when I think about how I used to be, would the bigger version of me like my personality? Has my personality changed for the worse? When people tell me that I look good now, what are they insinuating about how I looked before? Am I way too shallow of a person now? Have I compromised who I am? When you’ve spent 20+ years of your life, being treated by others and acting a certain type of way, I guess it takes time to change who you are. Was the confidence that I had in approaching woman always there? Or am I using my appearance right now as an excuse to act the way that I do? I’m probably overthinking, like I usually do.
If you want to diet and change your appearance to better your health – you should absolutely do it. But for me, I literally lost weight on the whim of looking good with my shirt off. Now that I’ve looked this way for 2+ years, it’s like all I see are people being attracted to how I look physically and I also put a lot of pressure on myself to look a certain way. I’ve put less stock in my personality and who I am on the inside. It’s almost like I have identity issues with the man I see in front of the mirror.
