236

This is a number I've never shared before. Mostly because it embarrasses me. It's a number I didn't want anyone to know ... a number I didn't want to know myself, to be honest.

I knew saying it out loud, or typing it here, would make it real. And I didn't want to admit that it was real.

But it was real.

I weighed 236 pounds.

The very numbers 2 and 3 and 6 sound big and round, don't they? They're not angular and thin like 1 and 4 and 7. The only thing worse would have been an 8 in that mix.

You and I both know that my driver's license never said 236. In fact, I didn't even know how much I weighed because I didn't own a scale. I didn't get one until we were a couple of weeks into this process, so I'm assuming I actually weighed more than that when I started. Stepping on the scale that first time was one of the scariest things I ever did. I promise you tears followed. Lots of them.

How could this happen? How did it get this far? When did I become a professional football player? Or a husky 6'4" man? How is this all me?

Doesn't really matter how it happened. It did. And 236 was the new "start line."

It's not a number I will ever like. But it's a number I have to own.