Losing Weight Sucks

What motivates you? Is it fear? Is it envy? Is it a desire to be good? I’m here to say, “Who cares?” If whatever it is that you’re contemplating doing gets done because you’re afraid of a nationwide salmonella outbreak, or that you might be offending people because you’ve got zits on your face, or that you think you’re going to be handed bad news by the doctor tomorrow, hey…it’s getting done.

Think of what drives advertising. Isn’t it mostly fear anyway? And the result is money in the pockets of the people who are advertising their products…with the exception, maybe, of Billy Mayes who is so loud mouthed we can hardly wait to mute him out when he appears on tv, though, I have to admit that I bought Kaboom and it really does work on shower scum. So, considering, maybe even he is successful with his message.

What I want to do is to lose weight. I know that it’s not healthy to be overweight. I know that I’m probably not going to live to see a ripe old age at the weight I’m at right now. Who sees fat old people anyway? You don’t. You see skinny, shrinking old people, but rarely do you see fat old people.

What else is a motivating factor to lose weight? Chairs won’t creak when you sit in them anymore. You won’t need to pay extra for your clothes. You’re choice of clothes is going to be huge. Imagine walking into a store and looking at whatever you want to look at BECAUSE IT WILL FIT instead of zeroing in on the Women’s or Plus sizes section. You can spend the extra money on clothes because you won’t be spending it on food. You won’t be thinking about food all the time. You can think about other things. You can look forward to shopping again. You won’t cringe when you look at yourself in the mirror in the changing room.

You won’t feel guilty anymore.

And what do you need to do to have this happen?

Little steps.

Lots of little steps.

Here’s one to try: Add…don’t subtract. Begin adding healthy items to your meals. Peel a carrot and include it in the lunch you take to work or to school. Speaking of which, stop buying your lunch. Begin taking it. You’ll have more control over what you eat, how it is prepared and how much you eat if you make your lunch yourself. Also, you will save money. Instead of making a sandwich with 2 slices of bread (110 calories each slicke) make it with a hamburger bun (110 calories for the whole thing). Drink a little can of lower sodium V-8 at 35 calories.

Here’s another little step: Begin drinking more water. They say 8 to 10 glasses a day. Work up to that. Water is a huge help as a hunger pain killer. You’ll get used to the taste of it. Drink it at room temperature and it goes down better. Water will flush out toxins as you lose weight. Water will rehydrate your body. If water is rehydrating your body shouldn’t it also help plump out the wrinkles? Hey, you can tell if you need water by picking at the skin on the back of your hand. If it is loose and stays in the shape after you’ve plucked it (old lady’s skin folks…old lady’s skin), then you need to drink some water. Water will also help flush out a possible kidney stone. Take it from me, stones are horribly painful. The nurse said to drink GALLONS of water when I had one. She was right.

Here’s another step: Do a little more exercise. Get a pedometer to see how much you walk around on any given day. Monitor it for a week. For me I walk about 4,000 steps on a weekday. If you could go around the block once before you go into your house after work you might add another 500 steps. It counts.