Journal — Jozef Môstka

Bib number 29 — first race

jozef@mostka.sk (Jozef Môstka) — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

17th September 2017. Beh Zubrohlavským chotárom, second edition. I have bib number 29 and in the finish photo I'm holding a medal in my hand.

Half a year earlier I started training with coach Mino. In those six months, twenty kilos came off. For the first time in my life I felt like I was moving in the right direction — so I signed up for the race spontaneously. After all, I'm an athlete now.

I wasn't. On the course I was cursing myself. What did I get myself into. That I can't do this. That all this exercising, all this weight loss was one big mistake. I finished almost last. Mino was waiting there, holding out his hand. All I could manage was one sentence: "Nobody told me we'd be running hills!"

Everyone praised me. I didn't feel good about it. Outwardly a success — twenty kilos down, finished race, medal. Inside I was completely lost. Childhood fears dragged me down even when from the outside it looked like I was winning.

My mom and stepfather were there too. It was the first and last time my mom saw me do sports. She didn't know what was happening inside me that day. And today I'm glad she didn't know — and that she saw me cross the finish line.

The chapter in which I write about this day is called A Glimmer of Light That Vanished in the Dark. That name didn't happen by chance. My last weigh-ins from that period are recorded in February and March 2018: 109.6 and 110.3 kg. Then the records end for two years. The next entry in my weight diary is only from June 11th, 2020 — 155.3 kg. Between those two numbers are two years that I will write about another time.

The 2017 race was a glimpse. What came after it is the reason why I'm writing this book.

The Third Subchapter

jozef@mostka.sk (Jozef Môstka) — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This week I wrote one of the most difficult subchapters in the entire book. In the final chapter I am currently writing, there will be more like it — it is a chapter where everything I have described so far begins to come together.

I wrote about the therapy I started because I didn't believe I could love. Not because I had never thought about it — but because I have been alone all my life, and with that comes the conviction that it will stay that way. I was afraid my feelings remained buried somewhere in childhood, in moments no child should experience. The first chapter of the book is about exactly what happened back then.

This final chapter is different. It is not about what happened to me, but about what I did with it decades later — how in therapy I regularly returned to the same place, to the little boy I once was, and learned to be in the same room with him without running away.

Gingerbread Cookies I Wrote About

When I posted a photo today of the gingerbread cookies I baked last December, I wrote that I was thinking about my last therapy session while making them. Now I know why that session stayed in my head for so long — I was writing about it right then. When I was writing that scene down, I had tears in my eyes. Exactly the same ones I had back then over the baking sheet by the oven.

And right after that came something else — a smile I hadn't had on my face in a long time. Not because everything was resolved or perfect. But because for the first time I truly felt that it was okay, exactly as it is.

What Remains of It

I learned a lot while writing this subchapter — about how a person can return to the same place over and over again until the pain becomes just a memory, not a wound. Everything I learned is written today in the third subchapter of the final chapter of the book.

This passage is from the chapter The Demon Who Changed All Masks, subchapter Return to Little Jožko (working title, subject to change).

Aunt Majka and the Hole in the Ice

jozef@mostka.sk (Jozef Môstka) — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In January 2021, I stood waist-deep in the cold water of a frozen lake, holding a piece of ice, surrounded by people I regularly met with that winter for cold-water swimming. In the photo, it looks simple — a guy in the ice, a somewhat amusing shot. But behind it lies a journey worth telling.

My first entry into the icy water was different. I was there, filled with fear and shame about my own body. On this day, a bit later, I am already part of a group — and that is exactly what this part of the book is about.

Behind all of that beginning stands my Aunt Majka. At a time when I was at rock bottom — physically heavy, inwardly broken — she accepted me exactly as I was, without conditions. She never pushed, she just gently guided me towards movement. Eventually, she pushed me all the way to my first cold-water swim. I had no idea back then that this very step would become one of the turning points of the whole story.

That first, terrifying entry into the ice gradually turned into something regular — and with it came something I hadn't experienced before: a sense of belonging. A group of people who cared about me was a stark contrast to the years of loneliness before.

Part of this journey was also the moment when I allowed myself to ask the coach for help — and was initially rejected. Instead of breaking me, it strengthened me. I realized that I wanted to protect this new, real life. And that the key to progressing further in it was learning to say "yes" to new opportunities, even when feeling scared.

This passage is from the chapter A Glimpse of Light That Disappeared in the Dark, subchapters Majka – My Greatest Anchor and The Spark That Ignited Hope.

An Idea That Came Twice

jozef@mostka.sk (Jozef Môstka) — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Eight years ago, colleagues at work told me I should write a book. We were sitting together and I was telling them what I had experienced until then — life on the street, half a year without a salary, how I taught myself to program, although I was failing school to become a chef. I was totally lost back then, occasionally taking meth. Despite that, the idea seemed good to me, even though with the life I had back then, it would have been a complete fiasco.

The same idea came to me again eight years later. It was inspired by one specific situation — nice, a bit funny, with a colleague and a bet I made with him. It is one of the few passages in the book where I laughed while writing. I'll save it for the chapter where it belongs.

The difference between then and now is simple: back then I had an idea without a story. Today, when I have five out of six chapters finished, I have an almost complete story. I finished the previous chapter a year ago, last May — back then the story was not complete yet. The chapter I am writing now is the one where it closes completely.

Why I Am Writing About This Now

When I was sitting over this part of the book, I realized something I hadn't seen so clearly before — that the same idea can pass through the same head twice and mean two completely different things. The first time it was an escape from my own life. The second time it was an acknowledgment that that life can already be spoken aloud.

That is actually the reason why I am writing this book — not to prove that "everything is possible", but to show what it really cost.

I am writing about this in the book — chapter Life Is Beautiful, subchapter Everything Is Possible.

First Step

jozef@mostka.sk (Jozef Môstka) — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

June 8th, 2020. At half past eleven, the box was sitting on the staircase. By five in the afternoon, the treadmill was in the living room.

€944.90. A hundred and ten kilograms of iron capable of going twenty-two kilometres an hour.

I knew I had to do something about myself. But I didn't want to start exercising again. So I took the easiest path I was capable of at the time. Fifteen minutes of walking a day. Nothing more than that was within my reach back then. Three days later I stepped on the scale. 155.3 kg.

In the first three months, nine kilograms came off. In the following eleven months, three.

I write about this treadmill in the book — chapter "Rise from the Shadow of the Past", subchapter "Every Step Has Its Meaning".

First Entry

jozef@mostka.sk (Jozef Môstka) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

19th August 2021, 16:06. I'm sitting in the Fabia, I turn around and someone takes a photo. Belly against the steering wheel, seatbelt across it. I wasn't posing, wasn't expecting it. That's how the photos come out where you actually see a person.

When I show it to someone today, they say the same thing: that's how he looked when he was at rock bottom.

He wasn't.

Four days earlier, August 15th at 9:56 in the morning, I stood on the scales. 143.2 kg. At that point I was already twelve kilos down.

My heaviest was June 11th, 2020. 155.3 kg. It was the first weigh-in after two years when I didn't weigh myself at all, because I didn't want to know.