Gabe hears his mom’s voice saying, “I named you Gabriel so you’d have at least one angel around all the time.” Gabe’s 30 birthday candles had the post blow-out smoke signals coming from their wicks.” Nice thought, Ma. I need more like one angel for each frickin candle, if angels exist anyways.”

What a sugar-dripping idea Ma had. It was out of place to this thirty-year-old man’s ears. But the women in the family and Ma’s Mother’s Club, who still gathered from their ancient new-mommy times, cooed at Ma’s angel idea. Another story Gabe heard was about that blonde-haired chick, named Alice. Gabe actually liked taking the magical journey into Wonderland with Alice, narrated by Ma. Gabe could escape his feelings about being the biggest kid in school this way.

Ma had a hard time leaving her story-reading role. Everyone had graduated to the Harry Potter series. Ma wanted Gabe to hippity-hop-hippity-hop with that long-haired, waspy, blonde girl Alice and that cat with the teeth-whitened smile. She insisted on reading it every birthday. Gabe gave street-dog resistance, then buckled under Ma’s insistence. He felt guilty about growing up. He ate his guilt.

Alice was the only blonde, waspy girl Gabe knew. Gabe’s family and community were populated with hundreds of Google flags for brown-haired, black-haired lovelies. Even Ma’s gray hair was preceded by auburn, chestnut, black, and—way, way back at birth— chocolate brown. Gabe, now 30, wondered if there would be a live, three-dimensional girl in his life. None yet. Would he have to settle for a blow-up doll in the passenger seat? Who would love him besides Ma, especially at this size?

Right now, Gabe is focusing his utmost attention on the TV show, The Biggest Loser, he’s trying to ween off the Food Channel. Hard because his sister, Anya, inhaled the show and junk food simultaneously while studying in high-school and college. What an expert at multi-braintasking; multi-everything, she was!

Gabe admitted to feeling a little jealous of his younger sister. She carried at 3.8 GPA throughout college, plus twenty-eight extra pounds. The latter came while consuming five-to-six thousand calories “visually” every evening via the Food Network. Gabe, on the other hand, had consumed through his eyes and mouth, especially during college. He barely cracked a 2.3 GPA. His frosh fifteen was triple that of Anya’s 28-pound total. Those 84 frosh- flab pounds multiplied times-four by grad day. He carried his diploma, enough weight to crush all of Alice’s teacups and all tea party attendees. Plus, Gabe carried the immeasurable weight of isolation, humiliation, shame, disgust, disappointment, nose-diving self-esteem, and nose-raising superiority-to-hide-his-inferiority.

Gabe’s facing another kind of “graduation” out of his compulsive-eating torture. He’s scheduled for gastric bypass next week. He’s relieved to have his release from “junk-food jail”, where his Trader Joe’s cookie butter allotment would disappear within the day. His family and friends’ cultures of cooking, chatting and joking over food- course-after-course will still be around him, as he retrains into a “hella-rest-of-his-life” new culture of eating small portions wisely. No hiding. No isolating. No lying. No stealing food from the garage fridge. Alice’s In Wonderland’s tea-party treats in vibrant, cartoon colors, will remain on the book pages, not in Gabe’s mouth.

Gabe’s candid and hopeful: “…This stuff-my-face and feelings habit is bigger than I ever got.” Through Gabe’s and my work together, he’s learning how leadership with food, feelings, thoughts and behaviors and feelings impacts the many other elements of whole-life living. He’s ready to leap into learning, with the farsightedness of the long-distance runner. “I’m gettin’ off my butt and outta the house…and when I do power-on the remote, I’ll pass up The Food Network.” There’s a whole team of us to help him go for his goals and dreams and maintain them. Whole person, whole life! He’ll LeadLifeNow and into a fabulous future.