Something that has stuck with me for a while was when i heard someone i knew, someone who had been thin their whole life, say "i don't understand why people choose to be fat. if you don't want to be fat, change it.." Now they weren't necessarily against people who were fat, but they didn't understand where they were coming from either.
As someone who has had weight issues my entire life, it took a long time for me to realize why, and to change my lifestyle so i could actually lose the weight for good.
My best friend and i, who also struggles with weight from childhood, were talking the other day about how we grew up and how that in turn effected our weight. Neither of us were taught to eat healthy or to moderate our food intake when we were younger. Our parents ate what they wanted and thats what we learned to do as well. As we got older, having the slow metabolisms we do and eating whatever we wanted, we became chubby and eventually fat. Our parents yoyo dieted throughout our childhood but it wasn't a change in lifestyle. From what i've learned, the only way to lose weight and keep it off is by completely changing your lifestyle.
I was lucky in the fact that the meals my mom did make for me once in a while when i was growing up were pretty healthy. My problem hasn't been as much of a quality problem, its more of a quantity problem. Meaning, i usually eat too much. Now that i'm older and learning about healthy eating and food and exercise, i understand my mistakes and i'm able to usually fix them. Sure, i'll splurge once in a while, i'm human and i'm very much into indulgence, but i have the willpower to correct it later and let it not become habitual again.
Now my main point by writing this blog was to highlight a thought I've been having. I understand this is common knowledge, but it never really clicked into my head until recently. When you are overweight, its usually because of a lack of physical activity and eating over 2,000+ calories a day, usually of unhealthy processed foods. As the days go by and you keep eating the same way and not burning the calories off, the food turns to fat and the pounds pack on.
When you get to the point that you realize how much you've gained, you can't just diet it off and go back to how things were, thats the mistake most people make. You have an excess amount of fat on your body now that you need to lose. You can't just stop eating, you have to eat a certain amount of calories to live on a daily basis. So you have to change your mental cravings and attitude about food while eating healthier and eating less. You're eating less so that your body can help burn the fat you have already, instead of just burning the food you ate that day. Exercise speeds up the process a bit and can either allow you to lose weight faster or eat more to replace the calories you burned.
I'm at a stage now where i'm trying to integrate daily exercise so i can burn the weight faster and more efficiently, while maintaining a lower calorie diet, but it's difficult. I have 15 years or so of bad choices to burn off of my body!
If you grew up with a fast metabolism or healthy parents who taught you to eat healthy and exercise from the beginning, your chances of being overweight are diminished. You don't have a childhood full of bad habits engrained in you that you have to change. Sure, some people never learn, some people take those bad choices and keep making them their whole lives because its easier to keep doing what you're doing than to change it. However, if you want to change, you can. If you were brought up with these similar unhealthy habits, you can change them.
In other words, don't look at every fat person like they just ate a whole cheesecake, 2 big gulps and a happy meal. Not every "fat" person still eats unhealthy. They may be eating really well, but they aren't eating less or exercising and therefore they are just maintaining their current weight. It takes a LOT of work to burn off so many years of bad choices.
So while my progress of losing 45lbs is great, it's not anything to celebrate yet for me. i want to lose another 25 and get down to a really healthy, but still curvy size.
To all of the people out there who have never had to struggle with weight, please don't discriminate against people who do. It's really difficult to change a lifetime of food/lifestyle habits. Its not only a physical change, its a completely mental change as well. You have to be ready for it.
Hopefully this brings up some points or sparks some thoughts for a few people out there..
Love always,
Lady C
