So as I sit hear eating my
I used to be skinny, I think I was two at the time. My mother was obese, 5'1 and over 200 pounds. She also died from a combination of heart disease, blood pressure, and diabetes. Yeah, I have a great family medical history. I lucked out in the height category, I'm 5'6 so I can carry weight better than a shorter counterpart. I was probably 10 pounds overweight when I had my first kid. By the time I had the third, I was 40 pounds overweight. I yo-yo'd up and down until about 4 years ago when a co-worker challenged me to a "weight loss" contest - the loser having to dish up money to the winner. Nothing fires me up like winning. It doesn't matter what it is I win, I just need to win. So to assist in my endeavour to pound this guy into a bleeding stump of losiness, forcing him to face the fact that I was superior in all things weight loss, I started walking. Let's get something straight here, I fucking hated exercise. At the time, I would have rather chewed my arm off than move out of my own way to exercise. After two weeks of walking, I realized it wasn't really that bad and hey, I actually felt kind of good. The walking led to eating better, because who wants to stuff their face with a bag of chips after walking for an hour.
Then a miracle happened. I started going to a gym. The angels sang from the heavens. At the gym, I started running. At first, it was more plodding quickly while gasping for breath and assuring the gym people that I was not about to drop dead on their treadmill. Then it became a bit more graceful, and lasted longer than 32 seconds. Inch by inch, little by little I became what one would consider a runner. I became a gym freak. I became ... well fit. Not only was the weight falling off my body, I stopped having daily headaches, I was working a full-time and part-time job and had tons of energy. I was going to the gym six days a week at 5:00am (before the kids got out of bed) and I was loving it. I fucking loved it. I was addicted to exercise.
Prior to starting I was wearing a size 14 on a good day. Five months later, I bought a pair of size 5 pants. My screams of joy were heard throughout the entire mall. I'm sure the salesgirl thought I was masturbating in the change room as I shouted "YES, YES" over and over again. I knocked the gym time down a bit and started running outside, going to the gym only 3 times a week to do weight training. I had muscles in my back. My legs could have been used to model panty hose on the cover of Vogue (I shit you not, I had unbelievably fucking sexy legs). I had cheekbones for the first time in my life. I was fitter, sleeker, healthier than I had ever been in my entire life and god I felt good. Happier....I was happier.
Two years ago I was diagnosed with a tumour behind my ear. A six hour surgery saw my head cut open, my ear ripped forward to access behind it, and part of my tympanic menbrane removed (tympanomastoidectomy...it amazes me that I can remember how to spell that but forget how to spell my own name somedays). Me on a morphine drip, the hilarity is still talked about by those who visited me after the surgery. Apparently there was this poor old lady in the bed beside me who had just had her SECOND leg amputated. She was on the phone with her blue-haired, church-going little, old lady friend talking about a Sunday service and how well Father so and so had talked about blahblahhaah. I was in the bed next to her apparently using the word "fuck" and "goddammit" like most people use the word "the". I remember NONE of it, I swear, it was the morphine.
Digress much? They had to rebuild part of the mastoid bone with a piece of titanium. I am a metal head...literally. Anyway, the doctor told me to stop running for 8 weeks. The jarring motion was apparently counterintuitive to a piece of titanium meshing into my head. Eight weeks was all it took to lose my love and desire of running. Two years later, though I have not gained it all back, alot of those fucking pounds have found their way home to mommy. My love for the gym is like my love for the Ex....long gone.
If I can go from a size 14 to a size 5 you can too. It won't be easy, anything worth having is never easy.
Exercise is key. If you don't move, neither will the weight. Trust me, I spent 15 years trying to lose weight without exercising, it does not work.
Exercise makes you feel good. I know it sounds like a cliche, but it's probably one of the truest things the medical professional will ever tell you.
When your body is moving, when you're exerting effort and energy exercising, all those shit foods you love so much, lose their appeal. I shit you not.
It is much easier to break a good habit than it is to break a bad one.
I think in 2010 we should hold some sort of blogger biggest loser thing. Who's game? I'll so kick your ass.
Challenge accepted! Tell me the rules. I am totally in!