Hello potential reader!
Since November of 2010 I began a journey. I never walked that path before and could only shiver from the stories I heard of those who went before me. I heard of grueling pain, mental anguish and physical exhaustion. I heard of continuous failure and rare success. All agreed the prize was worth paying for in sweat and pain, yet like a holy grail it often seemed little more than a fleeting dream to most, unreachable and distant.
I speak of weight loss, a very hot topic of our time and age. The media screams about obesity and it seems there are more weight loss related shows now than news. One sees larger and large people on the screen, tortured by sickness and unmovable bodies. Very often we hear now of the “first generation in the last x decades that won’t outlive their parents. From what I know of the media and the way it sells this all seems a bit overdone and bloated to me.
Of course we are fatter than ever in the EU, China and the USA. We never before had this much cheap food. This isn’t really something bad. We’re just the buffer generation, those unfortunate that were born by parents that knew hunger into a world that doesn’t. “Finish your plate”, “Don’t play with food”, “Don’t waste anything”. Most of us have grown up hearing these and took them to heart, while advertisement bombarded us with new varieties of food we were supposedly needing.
The next generation will be luckier. We’ll be the parents that had to diet, that knew what type 2 diabetes is and that know that it’s better to throw away half a doghnut than to throw away your health and mobility.
That said it comes down to the here and now. My personal happiness is at stake and I won’t be a statistic of the buffer generation.
I’ve been growing steadily larger since my 18th year of age and I found myself at 25 being nearly 40 pounds overweight and on the border of obesity. I would certainly have ended up like my mother, 80 pounds overweight had I continued down that road. I have the knowledge how to and the genetics.
Yet last November I looked in the mirror and could no longer recognize myself. I still remembered the lean 18 year old athlete and saw a chubby young woman looking back at me tiredly. I knew what had caused it… so many little things together make such a differense in the end. Because I never binged, or ate until I was sick, or overindulged in junk food. But one soda there and one hamburger there slowly got me up the weight ladder.
It was enough. I didn’t do it for men, as I am happily engaged to an angel, neither did I do it for fashion, because the blind preferences of the masses were never a healthy indicator for self esteem. One only has to think which women were sexy in the times of Michael Angelo and I would have been a Goddess of Love back then. No, I did it for health and longevity. I did it for my inner athlete that never let me down.
I decided it was all or nothing, forever or never. I wanted a different life. I gave up all soda drinks, all meats and junk food. I begun eating like a true vegetarian, all fruits and veggies five times a day. It was hard at the beginning as I fought off cafeine tolerance and habbit. But it only became easier.
I started training again. Half an hour every day at the beginning and now 1 hour a day. I never loved my strong body more.
Two months ago I decided to begin my diet. Meaning that I begun counting the calories I ingested. I begun at a weight of 168 pounds and by rigorous excersize and 1700 calories per day I have gone down to 152.
I already dropped two pant sizes and wear small-medium tops again. And yet I am still only 1/3 down the road.
I thought I saw a glimpse of my future success last week. I can only go forward now…