They were the first band I saw live in concert. We packed into a university to listen Adam Levine belt out 2,005 songs about love, heartbreak and getting over a loss.
I did not know that seven years later, Levine and his band member’s pop alternative would help me drop 90 pounds and impress the girl he loved so passionately.
From outside the womb, which was a heavy baby? Folklore family said I floated between 9 and 10 heavy Upon first entering the world pounds. Growing up in a small New England town with a population less than 20,000, many of my classmates from elementary and high school always knew me as the fat kid. My recreational basketball coach spoke to me and other heavy guy as "The Twin Towers". Other coaches defended me playing soccer or wrestling. I rolled down the hill in a fleece jacket blood red and called "the gumball grinding."
This is not that unusual of a trend in modern-day America. Overweight children have reported seeing high rates of bullying and teasing, a new survey. And the waists of children have not dropped much in the last couple of years. Although they are not expanding, a new study found that those remained stable with about a third of children ages 6 to 18 are labeled as "abdominal obesity" according to HealthDay.
Some parents do not even realize that their children are obese. Nor some children. And parents have been advised to put their children on diets, as it could lead to problems for adults and young people to eat, according to the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior.
I always knew I had a great body. Words like "husky" or "big bones" were equal to "fat" and "high load" in my mind. My mother knew I was overweight and did everything possible to make me drop the pounds. My aunt was especially honored my size, tell me in almost every occasion I had my life together, but I had to lose weight - which can be detrimental to the health of a person, especially in girls, according to an article in National Deseret News. My cousin always seemed to help me lose weight, saying that my life would change much if I did. But no matter how many times someone suggested I lose weight, I stayed with the status quo.
I saw girls blow for me and finding other pieces to hold onto. I always get in the front seat of the car because it was too big to fit in the back with my friends.
I watched the scale dial and leave 309 dead cold.
It was then that I decided to make a change.
In the summer of 2012, I had an internship in Erie, Pennsylvania. Without many friends - other than my housemates - to pass the time, I decided to take up a new hobby: running.
A recent study by the School of Medicine at Stanford University found that people are gaining a lot of weight in America because of lack of exercise, and not because of their diets. People stand still, causing calories from sugars sinful to conjure extra poundage for the gut.
Running helped me to buck that trend.
No need to write myself a diet - although I do not increase the amount of fiber - and mostly ate what I wanted food are. Burgers, grilled chicken, hot dogs and tuna sandwiches make up the majority of the food lists. The diet does not matter. It was the pattern of exercise - jogging for an hour six days a week - that helped shave off pounds.
But how do I stay with the regime goes? When there is storm outside and all signs point to stay inside instead of driving to the gym more, how do I keep going? What was my motivation?
The motivation has helped people lose weight and has been a source for many to get rid of his insides. The National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health found that motivation is the missing factor in people who lose weight. And when motivation is improved - as, for example, wanting to impress a girl - had a significantly greater amount of weight loss.
At first, Maroon 5 - specifically his song "Payphone" - was my motivation and acted as a reminder of the girl back in Massachusetts. But I soon came to find out it was not so much the song, and the girl, who was driving me to really lose weight.
I was my motivation.
Every time I got on the treadmill, the song found its way to my Spotify playlist in my ears was "Payphone" Maroon 5's hit summer that featured Wiz Khalifa and made his way to first place on the Billboard 100 the song was about someone spending all their money, time and energy on someone and wondering where it all went wrong. The same situation was very similar to what had been happening in the summer of 2012.
Before starting the summer, I had been pining for a beautiful, political maverick. She was way ahead of me intellectually, and she was as sarcastic as she was honest. We like a charm, telling jokes that only we understood. Our comedy was ours. Nobody understood why we were so close, since most of the time we would BICKER around like an old married couple.
And though we shared passionate moments together on occasion, there was something that took us back to take the next step. Her previous boyfriend had been cat pajamas - A finely dressed 80s-music-hate relationship with a cut straight hair and a corduroy jacket slim hipster. That's the part I was missing. We had chemistry, but I just do not have the body.
"Payphone" helped me get there.
Every time I stepped on that treadmill and heard the song, I thought of her and how weight loss would be enough to convince her that I was the man for her. Every effort and work I put into weight loss would signal to her that I could be the man she wanted me to be.
But even more, the song was a way for me to put stock in myself. Levine sings: "I lost my night / You turned the lights / am now paralyzed / Still trapped in the time / When we call Love / But even the sun sets in paradise." Which shows that it is getting into love lost? Similarly, Wiz Khalifa, who raps a verse in the song, says, "Swish, too bad could have gotten picked. / He had a very good game but lost their last chance."
More than words, music has been linked to motivation in the past. The pace and rhythm can affect the way you view the world of music, studies have found. And the flow of the music, according to experts, will be held the regular world and make you focus on your workout. So while the music may be what you think is the motivation, it is really only do they focus on their own training and their own motives. In a way, you are your own motivation.
"Payphone" was a way for me to put stock in myself and give confidence in my mind. It began as a motivational song to show I was a different man. But eventually, it became about me being comfortable with the person I was and hugs me.
And the scale - - The song pushed me down to 219 pounds.
When I met the girl for the first time after returning home from Erie, we had coffee in a cool cafe that was the cornerstone of our rural college town. She shielded her eyes with sunglasses. She was dressed with two larger red polo and a pair of baggy jeans. I said I lost weight in the summer. His response was, "Really?"
I smiled off. I knew I had. Your perception does not matter.
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