I need to let it go. I’m dead to the world now. The old world I had is gone. The lush green of the trees is a reminder of the world I desire but cannot have. With tears streaming down my face, I find a stone bench to lie on and regret everything I’ve done. “I knew I never should have started my diet today.” I said panting after every few words I tried to spit out my mouth. I was out walking that day trying to start getting rid of the extra one-hundred pounds I had laying around. I’ve always been a big guy, 312 pounds being my heaviest at only 17 years old.
I lay there, battling against my eyelids to stay open, but it felt like a group of people playing tug of war with them. Ten people on one team, one fat kid on the other. I tried my hardest, but also being dehydrated out In the blazing sun, the ten people won, and I lost the battle.
I decided it was time to get the summer body I’ve always dreamed of but never had, or did anything about. I had already started my “diet” last week. I felt like I wanted to die because I had actually started it. It was a fixed diet rather than eating healthier, exercising more and getting rid of all the bad stuff. I swear I almost cried when my mom told me that it meant I could no longer eat McDonald’s and Taco Bell, my favorite fast food restaurants. I knew I was going to miss those perfectly salted, golden brown French fries and the spiciness of the McChicken.
All of the hardshell tacos, cheesy gordita crunches layered with beef or chicken, baja sauce, lettuce and cheese and lathered in hot sauce, those were the things I would always get at Taco Bell. I would then get Coke and Mountain Dew, basically being injected into my bloodstream with a 2 liter syringe as if I was on life support. Not only could I not eat fast food, but neither chips nor cookies or cake. Even though I didn’t really like cake, the fact that I couldn’t have it, made it even worse. By this point I couldn’t handle it, my heart began to sink like the Titanic into a deep, cold part of my chest where all the things I loved like McDonald’s chicken nuggets went.
Back to present day, it has already been a week since I’ve started my brave journey to begin losing weight. I began cutting down on pop, which I thought was the largest contributor to my unhealthy diet. I began only getting one or two cups of pop a day instead of the one or two cups I had with every meal, and every time I felt like getting soda. My mom has already cleaned out our fridge and pantry of all the unhealthy food and snacks and replaced them with healthier alternatives. I was honestly depressed, food was the only way I found to help me with the bullying that I faced in school.
Ever since I could remember, I was being called names and being made fun of. They made fun of my weight, my inability to run as fast or as long as them. They called me “fat boy” “fat-ass” and the list goes on. I would stay inside for recess to avoid going outside where all the bullies were. Countless times I made the excuse that I was sick so I was able to go home to get away from school for a couple days.
As the bullying problem grew larger, so did I. I would deal with the bullies by eating more and more, and as I ate more and more, I grew bigger and bigger. As I got bigger, the bullying got even worse and that started a vicious cycle of unhealthiness. The bullies were actually the ones that inspired me ot begin losing weight, to show the bullies that I could lose weight and I’ll show them that I can do it and they can’t overpower me. Instead I’ll show them that they don’t have the power anymore, I do.
Even though it’s only been a week since, I’ve noticed I have more energy in the morning and throughout the day. I’m able to focus on my school work, and even participate more in P.E. I’m able to understand what my teacher is trying to teach me without falling asleep in class. I’m also starting to eat at reasonable times and spacing out my meals. It seemed kind of strange considering it happened so fast
Another thing I’ve changed is my sleeping habits. I would always stay up ‘til three or four in the morning every night playing computer games or Xbox online. My all-time favorites were Marvel games like Spiderman or The Incredible Hulk, I’m trying to cut down on my playing time and started adding that time towards the amount of sleep I get a night. I’ve come up with a plan, sleeping thirty minutes earlier each night until I get to a healthy time like ten or ten-thirty every night.
As weeks and weeks go by, I’ve began to change different things in my life that I think would make my life easier. I’ve started doing my homework earlier. I’ve gone outside to walk for about forty five minutes to an hour or however long I could last. I’ve started to eat smaller portions throughout the day and started eating breakfast. Within a couple of months into my diet and my junior year of high school, I decided to weigh myself and see where I was at.
I slowly stepped on the scale with my eyes closed shut, not wanting to take a single peek because I didn’t want to be disappointed. I felt the ice cold metal grab a hold of my bare feet. I let out a big breath and began to look up with some hope that I had actually lost weight. I heard the soft beep that indicated that the measuring was done. I slowly looked down and opened my eyes. I stood there in awe, I weighed 312 pounds at the start of this, and the number I saw on the display was 15 pounds less. I knew with continuous effort, I will be able to overcome the bullies once and for all.
Being less than 300 pounds at 297, I was proud of myself. I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, or in this case, my belly. I felt chills run down my back and a huge grin grew on my face, I had actually lost weight for the first time in my life. I was beginning to feel confident and happy, but I knew this was only the beginning, and it was going to get harder.
I began working out, every week I would try to hit the gym harder and harder. I began playing basketball again. The last time I played was in the third grade. I loved basketball, the thought of joining the basketball team always occurred to me, but I was too big to play. I started going down to the park down my block and began shooting hoops. I ran drills and practiced every day. Another few weeks go by and I moved on from simple lay ups to actually shooting from the three point line. The days spent practicing paid off.
It was time for another weigh in, but this time I wasn’t scared. I was planning ahead, setting goals for my weight and what I was going to do to meet my goal. That cold feeling ran through my legs to my neck as I stepped on the poor scale. I stared down until I heard the beep and the number read on the display. The number there was 285, another twelve pounds lost.
Months and months went by, I was making more and more progress every month. When I walked through the halls, even though I had worked this hard and made this much progress, the bullies still found something to make fun about. Whether it was my haircut, my shoes, my clothes, anything, they would find a way to put me down, and that’s when I really started to get p----- off.
Instead of letting the bullies put me down with their stupid jokes, stupid gestures, and their stupid looking faces, I took out all my anger towards them in my workouts. Adrenaline fueled my body to perform like it has never performed before. I lifted almost twice as much weight as I normally do, I ran quicker and for longer periods of time, my body was swiftly changing. The fat was melting off like a popsicle out in the summer sun. I hadn’t taken any supplements or any other performance enhancers, this was my body entering a transformation faze.
I had started at 285 pounds only a week and a half ago, and I replaced most of that fat with hard muscle, and almost all of the fat that was left had melted off of my body. I had also grown two inches since I started this journey, and weird enough, my eye color began to change. I always had brown eyes, but now they would slowly transition between green, blue, and grey, or even a mix of two of the colors. I was worried but astonished that I was making so much progress, even my mom was proud of me of how far I’ve come.
I went upstairs and decided to play my Incredible Hulk game. I was playing a campaign mission when out of nowhere, I had been killed. I always die because I was never that good, and I laughed it off, but this time was different. It was like someone had injected me with a dose of rage out of a syringe of hate. I let out a loud scream “D--- it!” and began breathing deeply, then I stopped. “What is going on, Joseph?” my mom asked as she busted down the door. I realized what I had done, and looked my mom in the eye with tears slowly beginning to form. I told her I got mad at the game, and she told me it would be a good idea that I turn off my X-box and go to sleep.
Like any obeying son, I turned off my X-box, went into the bathroom to shower. I stood in the cold water thinking to myself what was happening to my body, everything that went along with it, these new mood swings, the rapid weight loss, it felt surreal. I took my mind off of it to let my brain rest for a moment. I got out of the shower, put my clothes on, walked to my room and went to bed.
The next morning, I walked through the same wretched hall where all the bullies were, and for the millionth time, they had found a reason to make fun of me. There was a tiny little stain on my shirt and they thought it was hilarious to point at it and laugh, but I wasn’t laughing one bit. Then it hit me, my head began throbbing and I grew angrier by the second, I looked down at my arms and my veins were pulsing like no other.
I began breathing quicker, I bit my lip and red began coming out of my mouth with every breath, and then I snapped. I ran up to one of the bullies, the one I went to elementary school with and the one who started making my life a living h---. I grabbed him by the shirt with one hand and lifted him up two or three feet off the ground. With the most devilish voice I whispered to him “Say anything about me in that way again, you’ll be begging me to forgive you, but I won’t.” He began crying, yelling at me to let him down, I dropped him flat on his back, and there was a loud thud as he hit the floor.
  I looked around, and I saw all the bullies running towards me, trying to avenge this loser that was like the rest of them. I could feel the irises in my eyes quickly shrink, another rush of adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I loved it. I took a fighting stance and was ready to battle with my enemies, like my X-box game. My heart was beating 10,000 times per second, this is the moment I waited my whole life for.
Then, as they got closer and closer, fists ready to begin beating the h--- out of me, I closed my eyes and let out a vicious scream. Bullies began disappearing one by one. They were all gone, even the one I dropped to the floor. There was an absolute silence.
I slowly began opening my eyes, everything was a blur. Light began seeking its way into my eyes, leaving me partially blind, I also noticed something very odd, everything was blue as I opened my eyes wider and wider. I looked down to see worn out running shoes, and now I realized where I was. I was still at the park, lying down on the same stone bench where I had lost the game of tug of war.