The Lost Years

Dear Fat Jesse,

I know, I know. We haven't spoken in weeks. Okay, so I haven't spoken to you in weeks. Please stop trembling and come out of that corner. I'm sure that by now you're assuming that I've put on a hundred pounds, have resigned to my bed full time, and eat Cheetos out of my shirt all day. But I assure you that my weight loss journey, although a little slower these days, still carries on.

I understand that I owe you some catching up, F.J. After all, in blogger/inner fat self time, two months actually equals many years. We will forever refer to this lull in communication as our Lost Years. They are our deleted scenes, as no one will really know how things went down in this period of our weight loss.

Yes, Fat Jesse, I could drone on and on about how awesome and busy life has been and shower you with tales of why these letters have stopped for a time. But that would be lies. The simple truth is that I got sick of talking about losing weight. Yep. That's it. Sick of talking about it. I suspect that anyone who has ever set out to lose this much weight would likely go through the same thing: a time when they don't feel very inspired or inspiring to others. It can come after a failed attempt at an intense fitness commitment (P90X, anyone?) or shame from a major cheat day. Whatever the cause, what I want us to remember, F.J., is that there is no shame in keeping things personal for a while (remember our friend, Ariel?) until you figure out, once again, that you are awesome and capable of anything!

So what did I do during our Lost Years, you ask? Well, I've created a storyboard to give you a few highlights. As you will see, in addition to being a gifted scientist and German linguist, I am also an undiscovered artist. I felt it only appropriate to display our deleted scenes in this way. So, without further ado, I give you....

DEAR FAT JESSE: The Lost Years


Storyboard One: New Jesse Tries a New Jillian Michaels DVD


After my failed attempted at P90X, I decided to give Jillian 20 minutes of my day. Her gentle and encouraging style lifted my spirits beyond measure. Yes, that's the Grim Reaper, in case you were wondering.

(Dramatization)

Storyboard Two: New Jesse Goes to a Birthday Party


At my nephew's party, I ate so many hot wings that chickens everywhere trembled in fear. I'm pretty sure you were there, Fat Jesse. This was only a sliver of a three week long bender, in which I ran around screaming, "Junk food," like Animal from The Muppets.

(Dramatization)

Storyboard Three: New Jesse Tries Group Fitness


A huge bout of Fitness Boredom Syndrome led to finally giving group fitness classes a try. Not only were they completely Fat friendly, they were a ton of fun. Well, most of them. But more on that later.

(Dramatization)

As you can see, Fat Jesse, I was NOT eating Cheetos out of my shirt for two months. I had some ups and some downs, experienced boredom, and eventually got my mojo back. Now...you're going to wish I never came back. Because this, F.J., is crunch time. We're going to work our tail off and live to tell about it.

*No stick figures were harmed in the writing of this blog. "Stella" the Stick Figure is a fictional character and is in no way meant to represent New Jesse's current body composition. Super cute houndstooth/toile paper provided courtesy of Jesse's husband.

Artistically Yours,
New Jesse, -27 lbs