It was only relatively recently when I retired that I began to take the subject of weight loss seriously. You see I never considered myself to be over weight and ambled through life without giving the subject of weight loss any real consideration.
I always looked at others who were heavier than myself and very seldom at those who were fitter looking and slimmer than I was. Even when I began to think that I might have possibly put on some pounds (notice how I said possibly) I still believed that this weight loss business was for others and did not concern me.
The change came about when my daughter in law who happens to be doctor told me one day at the beach that I was definitely carrying excess weight around my middle and that this was a serious risk to my long term health. This was a wake up call for me and I decided to do something about it.
I decided that I would take up walking on a regular basis. I really believed at the time that this would completely change the way I looked. I thought that this would give me slimmer look as well as being a health benefit something which I secretly desired even though I had locked out this desire from my life.
Having made the decision to start I was now going to give it my best shot. It just so happened that about this time I came across an unopened bathroom scales which showed weight in a digital format. It was however in kilograms and not stones and pounds which I had always used. In spite of this I quickly realized that the new scales had the big advantage of registering kilograms in tenths as for example 86.6 and 86.5 and 86.4 etc. The big advantage of this was that one could see one's weight descend from 75.5 to say 75.4 for example. This was capable of showing progress albeit only small progress but progress nonetheless. I could have never seen this on my previous scales which were impossible to read for such small changes. The feel good feeling that even small changes in weight loss delivered was for me fantastic. There is nothing to compare with real progress towards a goal.
The first problem that I then encountered was that I found the walking boring and after awhile found myself making excuses for not doing my daily walk. However I soon found a wonderful solution to this problem when I started what I call walking with purpose.
By this I mean finding a purpose for the walk as distinct to walking in circles. In my case I decided to walk to the city's cemetery to visit my late departed family and friends. This was a walk of 3 miles each way which I never found boring because it had purpose and in fact I looked forward to it every day no matter what the weather threw up.
While I made some initial wonderful progress (I think that it was the shock to my body) I soon came to a stand still. It was then that I realized that I needed something extra. I knew that someday I would have to consider what I was eating and drinking but had again tried to fool myself into thinking that I could have avoided this.
I knew that I had to cut out sugar as much as possible in all it's forms. This would be for a start. When I decided to do this it led me into a world of knowledge that I did not know existed. This led me eventually to set up my own website where I could dispense helpful advice to those who both needed and wanted to loose weight.
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