The Weight You Carry

By Tanner Jay

The Weight You Carry: My 125-Pound Weight-Loss Transformation takes readers on a journey with Tanner Jay, growing up overweight and desperate to gain his self-worth through the approval of others. To do so, he identifies as the "funny, fat kid" who always makes people laugh. Motivated to lose weight because of his desire for a girlfrien

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Jul 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781641378925

Book preview

The Weight You Carry

by Tanner Jay

new degree press

copyright © 2020 by Tanner Jay

All rights reserved.

The Weight You Carry

ISBN

978-1-64137-987-8 Paperback

978-1-64137-884-0 Kindle Ebook

978-1-64137-892-5 Digital Ebook

I would like to dedicate this book to my loving family. My mom and dad, Karen and Tim, have done such a wonderful job loving and supporting me in everything I do. Along with this, my brothers and sister-in-law, Chase, Connor, and Abby, have been such a wonderful support cast on my journey through weight loss.

Contents

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Introduction

Built BIG

Measuring Up

What’s the Joke?

Left on Read

Nothing Was the Same

Model Behavior

New Place, Same Mission

HIIT Hard

Century Mark

#Weightloss

Diversely the Same

What’s Another Twenty-Five?

Puzzled by Reality

Now Leaving LA

Treadmill of Approval

Weight Off My Shoulders

Acknowledgments

Introduction

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Life changing is a phrase we hear but often do not truly understand or comprehend. This means something is completely altered beyond recognition. That is the definition of my 125-pound weight-loss transformation. This transformation changed how I looked, how I felt, and the direction of my life. This achievement has completely transformed my life. I knew I needed to share my story.

Although my weight loss is a very unique accomplishment, my life story of becoming obese, along with my physical and mental struggles, and the desire to lose weight, is something I think almost everyone can relate to.

The Weight You Carry begins by giving a background of my childhood and a better understanding of what sculpted my life into a state of obesity in high school. Like many others, I grew up playing sports, ate whatever I wanted, and heavily relied on athletic activities as my only form of exercise. My life looked much like everyone else’s but eventually, it started to catch up to me. Doing what everyone else was doing started to lead me down the path of gaining weight and looking different than those around me.

This continued weight gain began in my childhood but increased exponentially in junior high and high school. With the increase in food intake and the decrease in activity, I reached my peak weight at 345 pounds. There was no way around it, I was obese. The physical weight weighing me down mixed with the awful mental health and perception I had of myself was so hard to deal with. I hated how I looked, how people treated me, and I knew something had to change. I got to the point that I struggled to just walk up the stairs. While other overweight people might let it drag them down, I refused to allow it to happen. I decided to be different and knew losing weight was the only way to reclaim my life.

I realized that I used my weight as a scapegoat and believed it was the root of all of my problems. I found my identity in being the fat, funny kid, and that was who I was. Like so many who view themselves solely by their physical appearance, this created many problems for me as I started to picture myself in such a negative manner, and it took a toll on me mentally.

I have experienced every part of the weight-loss journey. Within the first two years of my college career, I had lost 125 pounds and completely changed my life around. This came from many hours in the gym, changing my eating habits, and overall dedication to my goals. From this journey, I learned a lot about nutrition, fitness techniques, and most importantly, myself.

I know losing weight, and especially the large amount of weight I did shed, is something that many people wish to achieve. I hope sharing my story allows others to be inspired, better educated by seeing what worked for me, and to learn from my life lessons. It took me years of pain, hard work, and soul searching to truly understand weight loss, my self-perception, and what truly matters in this life. Although I hope my story encourages people to lose weight if they need to, I want to share the tough reality of weight loss and the problems after a successful weight loss transformation. My viewpoint of so many things has changed since the beginning of this weight loss journey, and I feel compelled to share the lessons I have learned from it with others.

The biggest lesson from this book is simply that what the world views to be true about weight loss is anything but. I strongly encourage weight loss if needed as it did not only change my life but saved my life. With that being said, I learned that a false narrative has been created around weight loss. We’re told everything will be great in our lives and that people will love us. This desire to be wanted and for the approval of others is the motivation driving a billion-dollar weight-loss industry. These products and promotions are made to make you believe that you will finally feel satisfied as you are liked and admired by friends and family.

The tough reality is that the approval of others and the constant desire to be liked will only leave you feeling dry and empty. This was something I struggled with for years but only recently came to fully understand. Through the motivation of proving everyone wrong, I lost 125 pounds but I ended up gaining more. This gain did not come in weight but instead in the knowledge of who I am and where I find my identity. This book emphasizes that the most important lesson we can learn is how we view ourselves instead of how others do. That’s the real theme of this book and what I hope readers will take away from it.

When I first began writing this book, I thought it would be more of a niche book or for people who are interested in fitness. The more and more I talked with others and shared my story, I realized this book relates to everyone. Whether you have been skinny your entire life or are currently obese, we all care about how others view us and are concerned with our image. Our identity and the approval of others is mostly associated with physical looks, and we all can become obsessed with trying to create a perfect body. I hope that regardless of your weight goals, you can learn from my experience of working for the approval of others and avoid the same mistake I made in doing so.

Sharing my story has allowed me to open up a dialogue with many people I thought would never relate to my journey but truly do. The book includes testimonies from models, bodybuilders, people with eating disorders, and Division 1 athletes. This diverse group of people who I thought would not have anything in common with me taught me that they have or are experiencing many of the same problems, insecurities, and situations that I went through.

This book shares:

1.How I accomplished my goal of losing 125 pounds.

2.How the quest for the approval of others isn’t what’s truly important.

3.How important it is to not put your identity in something that ultimately won’t fulfill you.

Built BIG

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The beginning of any weight loss story starts as a child, and to fully understand my 125-pound weight-loss story, that is where we must start. My dad grew up playing baseball and basketball and instilled a love of sports in me. We had a wonderful relationship that only grew due to sports. We would go back and forth about who was going to win certain games, watch countless hours of sports, and while in the car, we would try to name every sports team by their geographic location. This loving and rewarding father-son relationship is what developed my passion for sports, particularly baseball and basketball, and an overall desire to compete.

To say that I loved being active and involved in sports would be a huge understatement. I usually found myself with my older brother, Connor, playing catch or putting up countless shots at the basketball hoop until we literally could not see the ball. We used to bring our gloves everywhere. Whether it was thirty degrees outside or if we were at my grandparents’ house in Florida, it was expected that we would be playing catch when given the opportunity.

Connor was in a Christian basketball league called Upwards. I distinctly remember showing up to every practice