Lost and Found

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.


Ep.43 Lost and Found

One of the most worthy accomplishments I achieved in China, besides improving my Chinese, is definitely losing lots of weight. I already talked about it many times in previous episodes. I failed to achieve my original goal for the semester—losing 40 pounds—but I succeeded on losing 24 pounds. I overall lost 46 pounds this year. I don’t want to show off or anything but I am pretty proud of myself.

I am going to end my one-year-long diet very soon before this semester actually ends. I am very happy to see the end of this brutal war on fat, but I know it is only the beginning of even bloodier war of diet. I am planning to continue the diet when I get back to the States. I think I will be satisfied with losing 20 more pounds and getting into some kind of shape by doing weights. Actually I am very excited to continue my diet and experience another myself.



[On May 17th, the Korean Student Assoc. organized "the sports day" for Korean students]

[girls trying to steal each other's hat]

Before this year, I never tried such thing like losing weight or doing diets. I never enjoyed any sports activity in my life and still do not feel any amusement from physical activities. I just don’t understand people enjoying sweating or getting tried. Since I found out that playing sports is not my thing, I didn’t bother doing any sports activities that make me physically tired.

I also never hated my body or anything. I was never unsatisfied with my figure. Frankly speaking, I sometimes have felt sad about my body because I couldn’t wear some clothes that I wanted wear. That could be one good reason why I started dieting this year. Anyway, what I want to tell you is that until this year I never had felt that I needed to lose weight.

[eating contest]

Then why did I start this bloody war on diet in the first place? I already mentioned the main reason. I met this high school friend in Korea who was as fat as me during the high school years and last summer I couldn’t recognize him because he lost so much weight. He definitely inspired me to lose weight starting last summer. That, of course, couldn’t be the only reason. I was a bit interested in losing weight before too but never actually tried. I started to go to the gym in the first semester of my 2nd year in college, but soon gave up, then, I never imagined that I would lose 45 pounds.

Of course, losing much weight not only has changed my appearance but also other things. Although I want to end my diet and want to get back to my previous life style, I just can’t. I can’t help myself worrying about gaining weight. It’s actually more annoying than you think. I check myself every morning through a mirror whether I have gained weight or not. I thought I could eat as much as I wanted once I ended dieting. But I was mistaken.

Because it took so much effort to lose weight, now I don’t want to gain anymore. It’s like actually owning something. If you own something precious, you don’t want to lose it. If you don’t own it, you won’t care about it. That’s called being obsessive of something. It’s ironical that losing weight is same as gaining something.

Through this one-year-long diet, I found something new about myself. Redefining oneself is actually quite amusing; it’s like enlightenment! I am really glad to know that I can achieve something physically (that sounds a bit awkward). I always have thought that I am good at using my brain but now I know that I can do something other than using brains. I guess what I found is confidence in myself.

I am definitely continuing my diet when the fall semester starts. This time my goal is 20 pounds which is doable. I also want to start weight training and get some muscles which I have never done in my life. So I am very excited for the fall semester for many reasons. I am also planning to take a PE class for swimming in the spring.

When I first started this journey to China and started writing this essay, I told you guys that through this journey I not only wanted to learn Chinese and understand Chinese society, I also wanted to find myself—you can check the early writings of this essay. I believe I definitely found something new about myself. This newly found aspect of myself, of course, won’t directly help me to get a job or plan my future. However, I am happy that there are still unexplored frontiers to be uncovered in myself; what’s more important is that I have the power and passion to explore those frontiers.

This is my story of lost and found. I cannot describe precisely what I actually lost and what I found, but I know that doesn’t really matter because I believe I will find what I lost and I will lose again what I found. That’s just how things work!