The Slow Burn: Do Your Tastes Change or Do They Change You?

At my heaviest, I weighed 357 pounds. Maybe more. I remember stepping on the scale one morning, watching the number flash up, and deciding right then and there the scale was no longer a friend of mine. So I stopped stepping on it. No accountability, no reminder, just more spiraling.

Traveling constantly for work, I was on planes more than 40 weeks a year…San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, LA, New York, Chicago, Madrid, Frankfurt, you name it. Each time I boarded, I saw the fear in fellow passengers’ eyes, praying I wasn’t the one to sit next to them. Sometimes the seatbelt wouldn’t click, but in my shame, I’d tuck it under my stomach and pretend. I would rather die than ask for an extender.

My mental health unraveled.

Desperate, I paid $10,000 out of pocket for gastric sleeve surgery in 2014. They cut out a piece of me, and in a few months, I dropped 60 pounds. But here’s the thing about quick fixes: they don’t change the root. My addiction shifted, from food to booger sugar. Sure, I lost more weight, but I also lost a 401k and nearly lost my life.

I thought I was outsmarting my demons, but really, my best thinking had gotten me into rehab. And it was there that a street-wise theologian cut through my delusions with a single line:
“Look where you’re at, moth#rfu#cker, you don’t know sh*t.”

He was right.

Sobriety wasn’t linear for me. I relapsed. I got sober. I relapsed again. Over time, I got some runway under me. But with the runway came the weight back. I ballooned. My spirit was alive, but my body was failing me again. One day in prayer, I realized God gave me a temple, and I had spray-painted it in graffiti. My joints hurt, my confidence waned, and I wasn’t performing at work.

So I started again…this time slower. Tracking calories. Cycling. Hiking. Even pickleball for a minute (don’t worry, that cult didn’t keep me long). Step by step, choice by choice, I began to build. Last week, I weighed 192 pounds. Although I am not a proponent of a numer on a scale equaling “health,” I was proud. It took 9 years. Countless failures, small wins stacked up over time. I’ve learned: there are no shortcuts.

Where you put your focus reveals what you worship.

What you feed yourself…physically, mentally, spiritually….is what you become.

And cigars? They taught me that lesson too.

For years, I had an everyday stick. Smoked over a thousand of them. My daily driver. Then the price jumped by $85 a box, so I stopped. Out of necessity, I explored. I smoked boutique brands, factory specials, heritage names I’d overlooked, blends I’d never touched. It was like being a new smoker again.

And when I came back to my old faithful, it wasn’t the same. My palate had changed. The depth I’d discovered made my old go-to taste flat. What once comforted me now reminded me of scarfing down two McDonald’s combo meals in secret shame. It didn’t sit right anymore….because I had changed.

That’s the beauty of cigars. They evolve with you. They challenge your palate. They reward you when you step outside of routine.

For my brothers and sisters of the leaf: don’t just smoke what you know. Chase new horizons. Go hunt down that boutique blend you’ve never heard of. Trade with a friend. Buy something out of your comfort zone.

Because sometimes the best thing you can do for your palate, and for yourself, is to step into the unknown. That’s where the adventure lives. That’s where connection lives.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s where you’ll find the cigar that makes you linger just a little bit longer.