He was 460 pounds. What to deal with his weight taught him about obesity in America

As far as he can remember, Tommy Tomlinson understood that his identity was inseparable from his body.

"I weigh 460 pounds," begins Tomlinson in an essay published this month in L & # 39; Atlanticand adapted from his next book, The Elephant in the Room: The Quest for a Fat Man to Reduce Himself in a Growing America. "These are the hardest words I've ever had to write in. Nobody knows that number – neither my wife, my doctor, nor my closest friends – it's like confessing a crime. average American man weighs about 195 pounds; I'm two of those guys, with a rest of 10. I am the greatest human being that most people who know me have ever met, or will ever be . "

It was Tomlinson four years ago.

Today, for the first time in 50 years, he has managed to lose weight and maintain it successfully. Making it was not easy. He knew how to lose weight. He would eat fewer calories and burn more. But Tomlinson did not experience long-term success before trying to understand Why he had spread so far away from a healthy body.

To do this, he studied the science and psychology of weight gain and reflected on the obstacles that stood against him – and to the estimated 93 million other obese adults in America – and in which he held power to overcome his obstacles.

Tomlinson spoke about his background in an interview with Melissa Block of NPR. He explained how he had studied the history of his family to better understand his relationship with food. Tomlinson grew up poor in the Great South, with parents who chose cotton and who started working in a factory before he was born.

"Every day of their work, they burned thousands and thousands of calories at work," he said. "I led a kind of sweet life through all the work that they did to get us there."

Southern values ​​remained unchanged, but unlike his parents, Tomlinson worked mainly in the office during his long career in journalism. This makes it more difficult to burn the calories from the fried chicken, biscuits and pecan pie that remained on the table, he said, as "a tremendous symbol of love and wealth" .

The food had the same symbolic weight when parents and friends crammed the dishes as a result of the deaths in the family. As he writes in his essay: "That which soothes pain prolongs it, what brings me back to life pushes me closer to the grave."

As her weight increased, the stress of everyday life increased. By subway, he said, he would fear losing his grip on the pole for fear of crushing a pbadenger. When he was traveling to unknown destinations, he was searching inside Google or arriving early to look for a safe place to sit.

But losing weight, it was more than eating less and doing more exercise, said Tomlinson. Research shows that losing weight can trigger a permanent battle against recovery. Some estimates show that 90% of dieters who lose weight eventually get it back.

"What's happening in almost all these schemes – not just for me but for others – is that they're really effective in the short term, but once you've gone through the crash period there is a rebound, what they call yo-yo diets, "said Tomlinson.

Indeed, the body is wired to respond to caloric restriction as a symptom of starvation and goes into survival mode – appetite increases and metabolism slows down, making weight loss more difficult.

Tomlinson said that he flirted with diet pills, low-calorie meals, unprocessed foods. But the event that pushed Tomlinson to make a serious effort was the death of his sister on Christmas Eve 2014.

Brenda Williams, "who weighed well north of 200 pounds," was 13 years older than Tomlinson. "She died as a result of an infection mainly due to her size," he said during an interview. "And, you know, I went to her funeral and I could see my future: she was 50 when she died, and guys like me do not get to 60. I knew then in a way that I have never really felt as deeply and emotionally as I had to change. "

Since the death of his sister, he has enjoyed the success of a three-step program: his Fitbit tells him the number of calories burned during walking and exercise. He then meticulously calculates his calorie intake. "If I burn more than I bring in, I end up losing weight," he said. "It's not a plan that will transform me overnight." It's very slow and steady and, you know, I'm still a big guy. "

But, he said, it's a plan he can live with. "I think that's the key to any long-term success.Lose weight, it's finding something that you can live with."

While Tomlinson was struggling with his weight loss, he said that part of himself was worried about how this could change his personality.

"I've always been overweight, and so a small part of me, irrationally probably, is worried (…) about the situation of a baby in the bath water" , did he declare. "By losing all that weight and physically transforming myself, am I becoming a different person, too, will I become a fool because of what I had to do to lose all that weight?"

Tomlinson said his wife told him that his weight loss plan had the opposite effect. "She said that since I started to lose weight and get in better shape, I am much lighter than before," he said.

"I'm sure there was that kind of cloud that was following me all the time and that I did not even know or think much, but other people could see it, and now I'm walking a little bigger in the world because I feel much more confident in my ability to become not only a healthier person, but also a better person. "

Dustin DeSoto of NPR produced this story for broadcast. Janaya Williams edited.

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