Weight loss is easy.
Well, no, that's not quite true. But I like saying it, if only to get a rise out of people. The truth is that weight loss can be easy if you make it easy. If you're really determined.
I used to be a compulsive overeater. That's another flawed statement- I'll probably never have a healthy relationship with food again, always on edge when I'm eating in case I slip back into bingeing. By Christmas 2006, I estimate that I weighed about 185lb (84kg). For a short girl, that's pretty hefty. And because I'd spent all my adolescence getting there, I'd never felt sexy, in my eyes or anyone else's. This was really getting to me. I can't say, exactly, when I really and truly made the decision to lose weight. I'd considered it before, but never made an honest-to-goodness stab at it. I do know that in my weight loss log, the first entry is Sunday the 14th January, 2007, but by that time I suspect I'd already dropped about ten pounds. Had I not started recording my weight, it probably would have ended there, and the weight would have come back, eventually, and the vicious cycle of 'feel bad about being fat -> comfort binge -> feel bad about being fat' would stay set in place.
Reasons I've retrospectively thought of, or at least cumulative causes of the decision, include the fact that my father moved out just before Christmas. This wasn't a tumultuous event, really, as my parents hadn't been a couple for some years. But it hurt, it really hurt, that he hadn't taken me with him. Rejection does strange things to people.
I decided to weigh myself every Sunday, record the weight on my computer, and put it all together on a nifty graph. I got obsessive. I think, really, so long as you're sensible about it, obsession is the only way to go. In essence, from being addicted to overeating, I became addicted to losing weight. Even so, I was sensible about it. From the Excel document, I can see that I've lost an average of half a pound a week. Slow weight loss, I gather, is more likely to be permanent. Yo-yo dieting is no substitute for a complete overhaul of one's lifestyle and diet.
So there we have it. I don't pretend to be one of these people who works a miracle on their own body, dropping hundreds of pounds in a year. Neither do I intend to fall below a weight where I lose my curves. I love my curves. Another ten lb is as far as I'll go. It's taken me a long time, and a lot of dedication/obsession, but I managed it, and managed it alone.
Weight loss is easy. | 
