An Odyssey ... of a sort - Part 3 of 6 by KimB

I took a hard internal and emotional look at myself and my future. It wasn't a happy viewing.

I was fat; beyond fat: obese; beyond obese: morbidly obese. I was going to die from FAT.

That was how I was going to die: I was going to die from FAT.

Every day I was lifting 20, 40, 50, 100 pounds every step I made. Every day my heart struggled to pump blood into those extra 20, 40, 50, 100 pounds of FAT that was clogging my arteries, my internal organs and hanging on my belly like a boat anchor, reminding me daily that FAT was taking my quality of life and leaving me with bitter dregs of “might have beens”. FAT was dictating what I did, when and how I did it, and removed more and more options with each extra pound.

It was a tough and hard viewing.

I decided I didn't want to die from FAT.

Nearly everyone who lives in the US has dealt with FAT before. We have diets and fads and special foods and special programs to help us deal with FAT. I've been there, done that. It doesn't work. FAT wins, returns and claims more of you than before. FAT is smarter than we are, it knows you will fight for a while and then cave. Once you cave-in, FAT wins and the pounds roll back on faster and heavier than before. It's a war; one FAT always wins.

In the US, the diet food companies and anti-fat programs bet on FAT.

It seems impossible to deal with FAT but there are ways to delay, sabotage and derail the FAT inevitable re-invasion. It takes courage to start and courage to endeavor to make a change when you know that you will have to do it again, and again and again and again. If you don't want to die from FAT, this is what you have to accept: The War in never won and it's never over. The victory is every day there is less FAT than before. That's all there is: less FAT. In return you get more quality of life. Not MORE life, more QUALITY of life.

I pooled my knowledge about FAT and how it works and put my “little gray cells” to work trying to figure out something, anything, that would help me with FAT. I did more searches, I went to FAT seminars and attended FAT Medical Weight Loss program informational meetings, reviewed surgical options and generally came up with... NOTHING WORKS.

It doesn't work. FAT wins. FAT is good business.

At this point, most folks just “pick one from the list” to try to give FAT a shove out the door. I've done this too. You pick what you think you can do and you do it for a while and then you cave. I can't even think of a “turkey roll up” without gagging now. I knew I had to try something “else”, something that would work for me, that I could do without too much effort or discomfort. Something I could make happen every day.

[Editor's note: This story was written by KimB and is part 3 of a 6 part series.]