Taking the road less traveled

I woke up this morning and thought I would get on the scale, against the suggestion of my trainer. I was surprised to see the number 2 pounds lower than 2 days ago. According to my recent weight loss, if I can keep it up I will be down 100 pounds in just 4 months. Now of course, I don't expect it to happen that way because at some time I expect to plateau.

That being said, I am very excited to be consistently losing weight, and doing it the healthy way!

When I was in high school I was about 180 pounds, with a high percentage of muscle, which only increased with my physically demanding jobs for the years to come. After damaging my back several times, I couldn't take it anymore. 10 years later, one desk job after another, up 100 pounds from where I started. I now sit looking in the mirror watching the changes overcome me, one day at a time.

For years I have watched my weight increase, my food cravings get worse, without any end in sight I put a stop to it.

As a society, we are trained incorrectly about food consumption, or at least I interpreted it wrong. For decades I have eaten when I was hungry, and when I would eat, I would eat quickly, and finish only when I was full. I was brought up to have 3 meals a day. My plate consisted of 50% meat, 25% carbohydrate, and 25% veggies. That was w
hen I was at home, but for most of my adult life, I have worked jobs that require me to travel, so I was always eating fast food. It never affected me until I got a desk job, and didn't think it was necessary to change my food intake.

It wasn't until recently that I realized how terrible food is for you as a whole. In this day and age, it is so much more difficult to find good food than it has ever been in the history of the world. With fast food on every street corner, and us being the "here and now" generation you have to have self control beyond belief to steer clear of the local McDonald's.

Recently, there was a high school teacher in the news.  John Cisna of Ankeny Ohio was inspired to conduct his own experiment after watching the documentary Super Size Me. To his surprise, and everyone else's he lost 37 pounds over a 3 month period eating only food from McDonald's.

The thing is, the overweight population in our country is not entirely our fault. But we can make a difference. When we came to earth, we were given agency. We can choose what we do and don't do, we can choose to eat that Big Mac, or we can choose the fruit cup.

If you are looking to lose weight, and I am sure some of you out there are, you can do it. You can control your future. The time is NOW. Take that first step, one day at a time.

I promise you, there are days that I find it difficult to do the same thing I always do, some days I feel like I NEED a Mountain Dew, or a french fry. Don't let food control you, you are better than that. If you fall off the wagon, get back up. Tomorrow is a new day, start over again.

The key to quitting anything is to always be quitting. You are never safe from temptation, but it does get easier over time.