Gregg McBride > Quotes

“I could stay bitter about all that now, or I could accept it and my behavior as that of a survivalist. That’s what my therapist in San Francisco helped me realize—that what I was doing while being subjected to my parents’ abuse was surviving. I tried to do the best for me and my sister. The best that I knew how to do in order to cope. That included lying. That included overeating. That included some mean and awful behavior toward Amy and others.”
― Gregg McBride, Weightless: My Life as a Fat Man and How I Escaped

“Do I have regrets? Sure. But do I know I was doing the best I knew how to do at the time? Absolutely. It’s not like someone handed me a handbook titled All the Right Decisions and I never read it.”
― Gregg McBride, Weightless: My Life as a Fat Man and How I Escaped

“These days if someone notices a scar, usually on my upper arms or legs, and asks about it, I tell them the reason it’s there. I move my finger along the scar proudly, showing it off as if I were one of The Price Is Right models displaying a prize. That’s what these scars are. Prizes.”
― Gregg McBride, Weightless: My Life as a Fat Man and How I Escaped

“It was in Boca Raton that I implemented a brilliant plan: If you don’t look like a model, hang around kids who do. I subconsciously sought out and befriended every “beautiful” person on campus. Little did I realize I was shunning the other “real-life” kids—in other words, I was doing to them exactly what I felt like everyone had always done to me.”
― Gregg McBride, Weightless: My Life as a Fat Man and How I Escaped

“I continued to learn that being overweight was nothing to suppress. Not the before. Not the during. Not the after. And that being me, the real me (scars, stretch marks, and all), not only fueled my writing, but fueled my soul.”
― Gregg McBride, Weightless: My Life as a Fat Man and How I Escaped