Free, Like Investment Bank FREE
I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to write in my blog today. I have a list of things I’ve already started that are either just ideas or actually already have some meat to them. I also have some guest postings in pieces that are due in the coming weeks yet I sit here with writers block for my Friday posting this morning.
What better time than now for story from my not so distant past, some insight into how I gained all of this weight. I graduated from The University of Michigan in 1997 with a degree in Computer Engineering and right out of College I had a job lined up at an investment bank in the heart of Chicago. It was far enough from home that I felt like I was getting away and starting new yet close enough that I could manage frequent weekend visits to see my family and friends.
This job was an amazing opportunity for me to learn about investment banking and work with some really intelligent people and remains to this day the cornerstone of my career. Not only have I built most of my professional contacts and the foundation of programming skills from that first job but I also gained at least 70 pounds working there.
How might you ask did I manage to do that? Like any number of investment banking jobs in Chicago and in cities like New York and London there are a number of perks to the job. To entice you into getting to work early (for market opens) they offered free breakfast. To keep you at your desk working throughout the day (while the exchange was open) and so you didn’t take long lunches they gave you free lunch. And finally to ensure your wide awake and energized they had unlimited liquid offerings in the refrigerators placed two per floor.
I’d usually grab a doughnut, muffin, and a bunch of other breakfast foods like eggs, toast, sausage etc. each and every morning. I’d follow that up with at least 3-4 Mountain Dew cans before lunch. At lunch I’d usually eat 1.5 of whatever they offered giving the other half to team members. We’d devised systems to order more than one lunch using fun and interesting names. They of course never asked for proof when making a lunch order, what did they care. In the afternoon I’d easily down another 5+ cans of Dew or Coke and 3 out of 4 days per week I’d work really late. What did working late get you at an investment bank? Well dinner ordered out on them of course.
At the time I didn’t know any better to be honest. I went from eating poorly yet rarely in college to eating like a king with food a plenty immediately after college. To be honest it’s a miracle I didn’t have health problems from all of the crap I ate those first few years. On top of the free food at work if you throw in the Chicago diet of deep dish pizzas, steakhouses a plenty, and italian restaurants on every corner you can easily see where those 70 pounds came from.
Like all good things come to an end so did this … it did however take a while. After 2.5 years there I followed up with another 2+ years of dotcom heaven where the lunches weren’t free but the snacks and soda were available 10 fold. It’s no wonder that early in my attempts to lose weight I failed repeatedly. I obviously knew I had a problem, otherwise I wouldn’t have started to try to lose the weight in 2000. I just wasn’t mentally prepared to accept what I had to do to successfully lose it and keep it off.
It’s helpful for me to reflect on my past from time to time. I try to make every attempt to not repeat past mistakes but like so many people I fail at times. The more I fail though the more I learn. In hindsight it makes perfect sense how I gained weight with all of this senseless and purposeless eating. At the time however I was blind to what I was doing to my body.
“A careful inventory of all your past experiences may disclose the startling fact that everything has happened for the best.” — Anonymous
Are you doing something today you will regret later or look back on as a lesson learned?
3 Comments
Comments are closed.
Man your story and mine run close together. Warning to kids getting out of college… Corp America wants a work ox and at the end of the day your going to look like one as well!
I can see so many simularities in your past and mine! We always went through 2 12pks of pop a week (and that’s just my daughter,hubby and I drinking it). It was our main source of fluids in a day! Now I don’t buy it at all.
As for doing anything NOW that I might regret later on down the road, I will have to say no. I do everything now to make a better life for myself and my family down the road.
.-= Brenda´s last blog ..Hodgson Mill Multi grain Hot cereal =-.
I love hearing people’s stories about how they gained and lost weight. I never seem to get tired of them! It must have been SO hard to resist all that food! Especially since everyone else was eating that way too. It’s wonderful that you are on the right track now.
There are many things that I have done that I regret, not today, but definitely in the not-so-distant past! But when I look at how far I’ve come in my health journey since January 1st, I am very happy.
.-= Carla´s last blog ..Contemplating the next decade =-.