Enough is Enough - Mandy

It was April 17, 2007, when I finally decided enough was enough! I had always been overweight for as long as I could remember and I didn’t want to be that way anymore. I had always been pretty healthy and active so I didn’t even realize how much my weight had gotten out of control until it was too late. I will admit I was always one of those people who looked at severely obese people and thought to myself how could they let themselves get that big? I would never let myself get that big. I finally took a step back, looked at myself, and realized I had done exactly the same thing. I just gradually put on more and more weight until I was considered “morbidly obese” by all the weight charts. My kids were a huge motivating factor and just what I needed to get started! I didn’t want my kids to be teased for having a fat mom or for them to be embarrassed to have me around their friends because I was so big.

In the past whenever I was thinking about trying to lose weight, I would tell myself I would start the next day or the beginning of the next week, or the beginning of the next month. It never worked. I was always finding reasons to prolong doing what I really needed to do which was eat healthier foods, smaller portions, and EXERCISE. Exercise in my opinion is the most important part of my weight loss strategy and the only way I will ever be able to maintain this weight for the rest of my life. On April 17th, I decided to start because it was in the middle of a week, the middle of the month, and was as good of time as any to get my life on track. I was finally ready to make a huge change in my lifestyle and have seen great success since that day!

This is not an easy process and it isn’t something you can just do for a little while and then go back to your old ways. You have to be committed to changing your life forever if you want to be successful. You have to find what works for your unique body and be committed to sticking with it even when it is tough because there are always times that make it really hard not to give up. Willpower and determination to lose the weight and get healthy are the keys in my opinion.