LOS ANGELES _ "Sir, do you have your seat belt on?"
I could hear the flight attendant, but I continued to close my eyes, rest my head against the window and cling to the blanket covering my lap, hoping she would keep walking down the aisle.
"Excuse me, sir," she said, her voice beginning to rise, as the passenger in the middle seat gently nudged me. "Do you have your seat belt on?"
As I pretended to wake up, I looked up at the flight attendant, hopelessly searching for an answer to her simple question. It must have been a pained expression she had seen before. Without hesitating she reached into her pocket, casually handed me a seat belt extender as discreetly as someone palming $20 to a restaurant maitre d' for a good table, and walked away.
I almost cried as I unfolded it and buckled the extender to the end of a seat belt that had failed to reach my navel. I knew I was overweight. That's not a difficult realization for someone who's 5 foot 7 and 329 pounds. But it wasn't until that moment that I felt ashamed.
It's hard to say why that was the moment I became embarrassed enough to want to change my life. I had long ignored other potential turning points that were seemingly just as humiliating.
I already had unscrewed the armrests of a press box chair in order to fit into my assigned seat at a hockey game; I had an airline passenger unsuccessfully try to change her seat because my waistline was, well, overflowing into her space; and I had become a platinum member at the only big and tall clothing store where I was able to find size 52 jeans and XXXL shirts.
None of that had mattered, for whatever reason. But this time was different.
My journey didn't begin with a New Year's resolution or at the start of a month or week as so many false starts had in the past. This one _ the one that has become my lifestyle _ began on Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018.
There's nothing significant about that date other than it is the day I decided to change my life. I made it a significant moment by not only making that decision but sharing it on Instagram and Twitter, where readers follow my work as a sportswriter.
I wanted to make myself publicly accountable, so I posted a "before" picture and announced that this would be the first day of a long journey without knowing if it would sputter out in a couple of weeks and I would look like a failure and a quitter to my friends, family and thousands of strangers.
Those strangers would end up serving as my motivation then and now.
