Guiltless Holiday Party–Woohoo!

Last year, Pam and I missed our favorite holiday event, an annual Christmas party at some of our very best friends’ house. Two years ago, at the same party, JD and I took the picture below. I weighed 215 pounds that night. JD and I had started Get Fit Slowly then, but it hadn’t really gotten off the ground and not many of the people at the party knew about it. Needless to say, there wasn’t too much talk about fitness that night–at least not with me.

On Friday night, Pam and I were able to make this holiday tradition. I hadn’t seen many of the people at the party since the last time we attended. Several people commented on how much weight I have lost. Still others told me they read my blog and really enjoy it. I got some interesting feedback from one person who said that they would much rather read my posts that come from the heart as opposed to the ones where I’m summarizing something I’ve read or providing some sort of tip–it’s too bad those posts are so much harder to write because I hear that comment often.

The party was really fun; the compliments that everyone gave to me felt amazing, like people other than my family were noticing all my hard work. It motivated me to continue at it and to get the job done.

But I really liked the fact that people were coming up to me and asking for advice like I’m an expert at fitness or weight loss. I know I’m not an expert, just a successful guy who figured out what does and doesn’t work and has been able to stick with it for a long time.

But the most interesting aspect of the evening, at least for me, was that at times during the night, I still felt some of those shameful and embarrassing social eating issues that were so prevalent in the old Mac. There was a lot of food and alcohol at the party. Mostly, I did a really good job of eating and drinking in moderation. There were only small plates available and there was no seating so it was pretty difficult to get a huge plate of food and go to town on it. But I still felt like I was being watched whenever I took a bite. I felt like people were saying, “Hey look at the fat guy shoveling food into his face!” I know that no one cared what I was eating and that no one thinks I’m fat anymore. Also, I budgeted the party into my daily caloric intake as best as I could have—but no one at the party knew that I did that and therefore I felt like some of the guests who just 5 minutes before looked at me as a fitness expert now looked at me as the fat guy they knew two years ago.

I know those feelings are totally crazy. There’s no way I should be feeling like that anymore. I’m very confident that I’ve finally overcome my addiction to food. It doesn’t hold the power over me that it once did. I hope that with time, just as my weight has decreased, that my guilty feelings associated with eating poorly will do the same. But only time will tell.