Big Purple: Jessica's Weight Loss Journey Began With A Swimsuit Pic

By Jessica Barksdale Inclan

Sometime in March 2004, a good friend sent me some photos she thought I'd like. Like is a word I'd use loosely here, at least in reference to the photos she sent. As I flipped through the prints of a group of us lolling on the beach at Santa Cruz, CA, I would have to say lolling -- at least in regards to me -- was an apt verb, one I'd have used for any other beached mammalian life. I was wearing a very large expanse of purple swim suit that threatened to take over the entire frame. I was a sea lion on parade, a large purple fruit, a thing so terrifying, I shoved all the photos under a stack of sweaters and tried to forget about myself.

The problem is you can't really ignore yourself because -- to use a cliché -- no matter where you go, there you are. My largeness seemed to haunt me. Every single jiggling step reminded me of Big Purple, the name I'd given myself after seeing the photo. I'd incant under my breath, "Look at Big Purple buying groceries," or "Look at Big Purple teaching her English class."

Of course, I'd known I was overweight, but along with several other aspects of my life that were too painful to fix, I could ignore the weight gain that had started twelve years before. I could ignore the problems with my marriage, and I could ignore the problems with my body. I could just ignore it all.

But I think I was calling out to myself by becoming larger. By the time I became Big Purple, I was too enormous to ignore. No one could ignore me, not even myself. But how big was Big? One day soon after looking at the photo, I decided to get on the scale. My husband had a very fancy by-the-ounce scale, and I stepped on it, feeling the glass on my bare feet (as if shoes would make a difference at this point). I waited a few seconds and looked down.

I couldn't believe it. I closed my eyes and opened them again. It was true. Two hundred and twenty pounds. I weighed more than my husband by fifty pounds. I stepped off and then on again, hoping that I'd made a mistake. I breathed in and out, my heart pounding. I looked down at the scale, and the number was even larger. Two hundred twenty and seven ounces.

Big Purple was no imaginary creature. She was real and weighed more than a tight end.

Sometimes folks tell you the exact date that a diet started, and in fact, my "diet" started that minute, at least literally. But in truth, my diet started sometime before my friend sent me the photos. Later, I asked how she could have sent them to me as they were so horrifying, and she said, "I thought you'd need them."

"Why would I have needed those?" I asked.

"It just seemed like it was time," she replied.

I wasn't exactly sure what she meant, but later, I realized that I'd slowly been turning toward the place where I could change. Changing is a mindset, not a rule book. To change a whole system of being takes more than deciding to stop eating sugar. Changing means getting to a place where the decision to not eating sugar is something you can do.

Big Purple was ready to give up her swim suit.

And here's the truth, one that others who watched me lose the weight weren't really satisfied with. The bottom line of a diet is less in, more out. I started calling it the Duh Diet because it's truly that simple. Eat less, work out more. That day after stepping down off the scale, I embarked on a diet of eating better quality food with fewer carbs and sugar and a lifestyle that involved more physical activity. I'd always worked out (one masseuse told me I was "solid"), but I signed up for a set of five personal training sessions at my gym, requesting "a lot of sweating."

I stopped phoning it in, added weight bearing activity to my regime, and committed to 45-60 minutes a day of cardiovascular activity. And, yes, duh, I stopped eating as much. Four or five small meals a day that included lots of vegetables and fruit and protein and very little sugar. Not so much pizza, no ice cream, and all the eating habits we know we should all have: no fast food, no snacking, no eating late at night. Like I said. Duh.

By late spring 2004, I was down to a size 16. By the end of the summer, I was wearing a size 12. Now, seven years since the day I made that fateful weigh in, I weigh 140 pounds, wear a size 10, and Big Purple is nowhere to be found.

Not that losing weight isn't hard, but the harder changes occurred simultaneously. After a long marriage and a lot of work on it, my husband and I separated. As with us intricate humans, it wasn't my weight that was making me unhappy, but my life that led me to behaviors that helped put on the pounds. Year after year, I neglected my life situation by hiding it behind my large body. My problem -- my fatness -- was easier to deal with than my other issues -- my marriage wasn't working. Like stepping on the scale, calling a marriage counselor was a first step toward not a saved marriage but a happier life.

Seven years later, I'm remarried. Thinner and happier. It wasn't easy, but it took my recognizing that I wasn't happy to make any of it happen. I couldn't ignore myself any longer. Not any part, no matter how big.

Jessica Barksdale Inclan is a novelist who teaches literature and creative writing for Diablo Valley College. Visit her at Red Room to read about her work, including her supernatural romance novel Being with Him, now available in paperback.