You don’t have to be fat! I’m not a teenager anymore, but I was a few years ago and I was fat. It’s a pity I don’t have any photos from that time, so I could show you a kind of before and after, but I destroyed all the photos that were taken of me. I felt terrible about myself. The children made fun of me. I’m a man, so it hurt when they said I had “boobs” or asked how much I weighed. It was a very depressing time. I am my life. If being fat gets you down, you have to do something about it. NOW.
Maybe your parents have told you that you should like who you are and not worry about what other people think. School counselors say there are all kinds of people and you shouldn’t submit to peer pressure. But the truth is, people are mean, and if you’re fat, people will make fun of you. Whether it’s to your face or behind your back, people can be mean even when they don’t mean to. I’m not trying to make you feel worse, it’s just a fact that many people are judgmental and if you don’t fit their idea of ”normal” they will judge you.
Some people learn to deal with being overweight and don’t care about all the problems (physical and mental) that come with it. I’ve even seen some sites on the internet about ‘fat guys’ coming together in forums or clubs. There are also many new laws being passed regarding weight discrimination. But I am not one of those people. I was a teenager when I decided that she would no longer be fat. I tried starvation diets, I tried exercise and failed at both. Eventually I said enough, asked my mom for help (she had recently lost weight) and started working 100 percent on this weight loss thing. I decided that I didn’t want people to laugh at me. I decided I didn’t want to be the “fat kid” anymore.
As I did? I counted calories. I made a table of what I ate every day. How many calories, how many grams of fat, how much protein, and how many carbohydrates did you eat every day. I searched the internet for what my stats should be and what I could eat to lose weight. I started running on a trail behind my house and the next sports season I joined the track team. Every day he ran five miles. I chose one day a week when I could goof off. I didn’t go crazy, but I would eat pizza for school lunch, go out to dinner at night, have a candy bar and a soda while watching a movie.
Sometimes during the week I would have terrible food cravings. She really wanted to have a snack. My parents always had snacks lying around. I had friends who went to McDonald’s and I knew if I went I would get something because I was too embarrassed to tell them I was on a diet. I ran extra at track practice and didn’t have night snacks before bed. In about four months I lost about 30 pounds. People were saying things like “Wow, you’ve lost so much weight!”, “Running is really paying off man,” and “Congrats, I didn’t even know you were on a diet.” I felt great. The children talked about how I got in shape and how I had changed so much. I know it’s a bit superficial, but I felt so much better. He was no longer the fat kid who cried on the way home from school. I was the guy who had a track meet next Friday and I was working to get my time in the mile under five minutes. I was the type who didn’t eat junk food because it was bad for me. I was the guy who worked out after school instead of “hanging out in the park.”
I am not writing this just to tell you about my success. I want to tell you that if you want to lose weight, you will have to take the initiative to do it yourself. Your body is your responsibility. It’s not going to happen overnight, but it can happen, if you stick with it.
