For many years I had been over weight. I knew it and everyone I knew also knew it. I had several people including a doctor tell me over the years that I needed to lose weight. All those years and as much as I knew it, I didn’t have the desire to lose weight. Sure, I had those half hearted attempts at weight loss. But somewhere deep down I didn’t have the want or desire to stay with it. I knew (or thought I did) the potential health problems that could occur with continuing to be over weight yet I still did nothing.

When I found out that I had diabetes I knew that my weight probably had a lot to do with it. I knew before that my weight had caused issues with high blood pressure and cholesterol but this time it was different. This time the doctor told me I had to lose weight and something inside me clicked. This time I really had the desire to lose weight.

I don’t know if the thought of diabetes was the actual trigger or it was just the time when I really wanted to change things. It might have been the combination of being scared of the diabetes (although I am not sure why the high blood pressure or cholesterol didn’t scare me) and the desire to start feeling less tired and have more energy.

I know that all those years I didn’t do it for my kids even though they suggested it. I didn’t do it for Mrs. EB who thought it might be a good thing. I didn’t do it for my doctors who had strongly suggested it. For some reason I didn’t want to do it and so the weight continued to pack on. It packed on to a point that I was almost double the weight that the BMI chart showed I should be. It packed on to the point that I was considered morbidly obese. Yet I still did nothing until that day in May 2008 when I said “I want to lose weight and get healthy and I want to do it for me”.

That day was the beginning of my life-long (or the remainder of it, although I don’t plan on going) journey to be a healthier me. 85 lbs have been shed, 10 inches have been lost from the waist line, my body fat has been cut in half, my chronic snoring has disappeared and I have the energy to do things that I used to run out of breath doing. I actually weigh now what I did when I graduated high school all those many years ago.

In the end you have to lose weight because YOU want to and YOU have the desire to do so. If it isn’t for YOU then you won’t succeed.

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