Committing To a Long-Term Lifestyle Change

Like many women, I have struggled with my weight for my entire life. It is tough when you must watch everything that enters your body to avoid gaining additional pounds. For my body type, as I age, it seems to get worse. My metabolism is almost nonexistent, so I have decided to become accountable for my own actions. Heredity does play a large part in my body shape and type; however, I have decided to stop using this as an excuse for my short comings.

Let me go back in time just a bit so that you get a true picture of my fitness and nutrition journey. After I left for college at age 18, I went through a drastic change in my nutrition and fitness journey. A great part of this was based on the lifestyle of a broke college student, not a seriously conscious effort to eat right or lose weight (laugh). It, sort of, just happened. For those who are unfamiliar, I spent so much time walking or biking to the main campus, it caused me to lose a great amount of weight. In addition, eating was not my top priority as in the case of most college students.

I returned home after my sophomore year. At this point in time, I did purposely put a greater effort into losing more weight and keeping it off. I was probably about 185 pounds when I left for college and I was able to get myself down to 145 pounds. I was so proud of my accomplishment because I had struggled with extra weight since grade school. But the unthinkable happened right in the middle of my weight loss journey. My father, who was my everything, my root, my resource, passed away when I was 21 years old.

I can see everything so vividly. My mental state was shot. All I can remember is that I began noticing that my clothes were getting tighter and tighter. I stopped working out and I became careless with my food intake. Before I knew it, the scale began to tip past my original high school weight, and I was soon diagnosed with diabetes. I had children and got married in the coming years and with that came more weight gain.

I am telling the background to my story because I want to familiarize you with how my weight loss journey started, but I also want others to know that it is never over unless you give up on yourself which I refuse to do. I promised myself that I would do two major things as long as I lived. The first thing was to always walk my children through this health journey and make them aware of the necessary eating habits to avoid weight gain and diabetes. The second promise was to never give up on myself and to share my journey with others.

One thing that we, as African Americans, have often neglected to do is to make our youth aware of what is necessary to eat and live healthy. We have also neglected to show them how our body type can affect our weight loss or gain. As we age, this makes a huge difference for a person as an individual. My food intake as someone with an apple shape is going to be totally different from someone who is naturally thin and has a high metabolism.

I have a good foundation because I love fresh vegetables and fruit. I do eat meat, but I am not a huge meat lover. My downfall is that I love sweet drinks and pasta, so I am looking for a happy medium that does not require me to give up everything that I love. So here is the kicker. I hate to exercise! But I am going to overcome this small problem. I have realized that I do not have a choice in this matter, and I will not go another day without tackling this issue.

I am challenging you all to not only hold me accountable, but to hold yourselves accountable as well. Let’s get it! Let’s show the world what we have and let’s give it our best shot. We owe it to our family and friends, but number one, we owe it to ourselves. We need to treat our bodies so much better. This will allow our energy levels to go through the roof. Find yourself an accountability partner and give this everything that you have got. We will not think of this as a diet or a temporary exercise plan. This is going to be a long-term lifestyle change. You can do it and so can I.