Today, I read the account of divabarbarella’s journey to lose weight that was originally published in the San Diego Reader’s edition of September 27, 2007 “Being Fat Sucks”. It was re-published on fatmanwalking.com by Barbarella as a contributing writer.

Even though I have not been as overweight as Barbarbella, I can still relate to her story of “Being Fat Sucks“. One afternoon on the way home, I can remember being asked on the subway if I needed a seat because the woman asking thought I was pregnant. That evening, I looked at my stomach in the mirror and it was as large as if I were 7-months pregnant.

Weight creeps on slowly day-by-day almost like a thief in the night. Then one day when we get a sudden jolt of reality, we expect to lose weight overnight. Just as slowly as it was gained, it now has to be slowly lost over time. What I always encourage others to do is look at food as a weapon – it is the power of food that can work in your favor. Learn how to use food in the way it was intended – to gain your health and slowly lose weight in the process.

Exercise slowly as well so as not to stress joints and put undue strain on your heart and other muscles. You have to start at some point and work your way up level-to-level as you would climb stairs, step-by-step until you reach the top. When I first started to exercise on my old treadmill that was gathering dust in my basement, I could barely manage 5-minutes. I vowed that I would add 1-minute to my walk each day and keep adding until I could do 30-minutes and conclude with a 5-minute run. It felt like it would have been impossible based on the first day’s experience.

It is important to make a decision for yourself and be determined to achieve the result for yourself. If it helps to keep some ridiculous statement that was made to you about your weight in the back of your mind to motivate you, then by all means use it. It’s far better than having to be diagnosed as hypertensive and be given diuretics to lower your sky-high blood pressure.

My high blood pressure reading was the turning point for me. I have a family history that my new diagnosis would exacerbate and I was much too young to travel that road. I wanted to be around for a much longer time because I had unfinished business. This to me was divine intervention giving me an opportunity to accomplish my goals. I had to take this chance and run with it now, no more delays – to lose weight was the most important goal of my immediate future.

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Lose weight slowly so that you do not compromise your liver and gallbladder. Just as being overweight can be unhealthy and can lead to diseases relating to obesity; conversely, too rapid weight loss can be detrimental to your health by way of organ damage or impaired organ function. Be smart and realize that you gained weight over several months or years. Therefore, you need to give yourself the same amount of time to reverse your eating habits and improve your lifestyle in order to achieve permanent weight loss.