I Had To Learn To Accept My Body To Travel Comfortably As A 300-Pound Traveler

I got the travel bug fairly early. I was 12 when my mother told my brother and me she was sending us to Kenya to live with my aunt for two years. My mom is from Mombasa and wanted us to experience our Kenyan heritage and culture as first-generation African Americans. 

My mother didn’t take the trip with us, so we were unaccompanied minors traveling with a flight attendant. It felt so grown-up to sit in large first-class seats, enjoy all the soda we wanted, and eat first-class food.  

That trip and the experience in Kenya put an insatiable love of travel in my soul.

As an adult, I could travel as much as I wanted to. My first adult trip was as a 19-year-old traveling from Milwaukee (where I was born and raised) to New York. What should have been an exciting experience turned into my worst nightmare.

I got on the flight and sat in my seat. As I tried to put the seat belt on, it didn’t fit across my body. I tried to contort my body, shift my position in the seat, and suck in my belly to the extreme, but the seat belt would not click closed.

As the flight attendant passed, I whispered and asked if I could get a seat belt extender. She didn’t hear me, so I repeated my request. She responded in what felt like amplified theater mode, “The seat belt doesn’t fit; you’re going to need a seat belt extender.” I could feel all the blood in my body rushing to my face as I felt outed and exposed.

What made the situation worse was that the plane had no extra seat belt extenders onboard, as they had already handed out the few they had to passengers. They called in to have one brought down from the terminal. 

I waited, and the whole plane waited with me. The flight was delayed for hours while we waited for the seat belt extender. It felt like everyone was looking at me with rage and hate when they realized I was the holdup. 

As time passed, it took all my willpower not to run off the flight. The seat belt extender arrived hours later, and we took off on the most uncomfortable flight of my life. I didn’t want to move a peep or talk to anyone. 

Sadly, that wasn’t my only embarrassing seat belt and extender incident. I had a repeat of the seat belt extender experience on trips to Sydney and London. 

After these incidents, I decided to put travel on hold because of my weight and how I saw myself. I told myself I was too fat to travel. I didn’t travel again for 12 years.

Around my 32nd birthday, I had an opportunity to travel for my business. I had started a corporate consultancy that provided live training. A company in Paris booked me to train their team, which meant I’d be back in the skies again.

This time, I was prepared. I purchased my own seat belt extender on Amazon, booked first-class seats for the extra width, and booked the flight days before in case I needed to bail — I wouldn’t have another seat belt extender incident.