Why I started weight loss training

It is a random Friday evening when my friend messages me,
“What’s the story tonight?”

I don’t want to leave the house. It has been a long work week.
So I hesitate, then reply,
“How do you feel about dinner at Proud Mary?”

An hour later, we find ourselves at the bar.

A gentleman walks up to us, puts my friends’ drinks on his tab, and begins chatting to them. I stare intently at my phone, already deciding the role I will play in this scene, you know, the third wheeling unattractive friend

This goes on for about thirty minutes before my friend turns to me and says,
“He actually wants to speak to you.”

Reader, I will spare you the long version.

We meet for breakfast the next day. He asks for my Instagram. I haven’t posted in over a year so there’s old photos of me.

He scrolls. Pauses. Looks up at me.

He is shocked.

He tells me, plainly, how different I look.

And just like that, my stomach drops.
The kind of drop that feels like a wet soccer ball hitting your face in front of the whole school. Sudden. Public. Humiliating.

He says that I have gained weight, and then the final bullet “What happened?” “Mbali, what really happened?”, as he puts away his phone to listen to my response intently.

If it wasn’t for sitting in front of him, I would have found it difficult to keep it together. I felt so “found out”, so embarrassed and humiliated, like all the emotions I’d been eating away were hiding in plain sight.

But sensing the genuine care and curiosity, I opened up and that conversation became my catalyst.

I determined that I never want to feel that way again, that is, insecure about and lacking control over my body.

So, desperately searching for a place to begin, I booked an appointment with a dietician the next day.

The most important thing to me was regaining control of my body through discipline.

I was intentional about not getting any personal trainer or taking any substances other than adhering to strict dietary control. I wanted to see purely what my mind-body connection could do.

Before long, my colleagues, friends and family began to comment on how much I’ve changed before I even took note of the difference.

A principle I keep coming back to is that fitness is the only area in one’s life where output is the most positively correlated to input.

Careers don’t always reward hard work. Relationships don’t always reflect what you put in. You can study for an exam and still fail. You can show up fully in a friendship and still lose it.

But your body pays attention. It registers the sleep, the food, the stillness, the movement. It responds, slowly, honestly, without drama, to what you consistently give it.

In a world where so much is outside our control, I consider that relationship as something worth protecting.

I didn’t go out that Friday wanting a turning point. I just wanted a warm evening with familiar faces.

But sometimes the moment that changes you arrives without any warning. Sometimes it’s a curious and caring stranger asking you questions you weren’t ready for.

I’m glad he asked.

Oh, and reader, he became my closest friend and confidant, if you’re wondering how this story ended.