Tip #1 Nobody can tell you when to start

When I weighed 175 or so, I knew I was overweight, but I also didn't want to hear about it. Sure, my clothes were tight and, yes, there were lots of things I couldn't wear any more—but they weren't really in style anyway. I avoided mirrors, of course. And we didn't have a scale in the house. My husband kept saying kind things in a gentle voice, and it just enraged me.

But what really got me started was that picture, that picture that my BFF sent me after I'd been to see her. She wasn't trying to be hurtful, in fact I'd asked her to take the picture and send it to me. Yikes!

Here's my theory: You can't lose weight if you feel bad about yourself. If somebody brings it up to you, no matter how kindly or well-meant it's said, it makes you feel like a failure. Oh god, on top of everything else, I'm fat.

But—if you decide, for whatever reason, to lose a bit of weight, that's a good thing—in fact that's an amazing thing. Yay you! You've decided on your own.

Now you can design yourself a plan that has reasonable goals and limited demands on your lifestyle and pocketbook and will reward you in the long term.

Yay us!

Really Losing Weight

I lost a lot of extra weight--about 45 pounds worth--and I did it by myself, without Nutrisystem, or Weight Watchers, or Core Rhythms, or Hoodia. I learned a lot of stuff in the process, and a lot of stuff these companies don't want us to know about losing weight. This blog essentially a bunch of tips I've learned, and it's for anybody who doesn't have the money or interest in dabbling with drugs or excessive exercise regimes or group efforts or expensive frozen dinners.

Now--I'm not knocking those plans, I just don't think they're necessary. And of course--if you start any kind of a weight loss program, you should talk it over with a doctor anyway. This isn't really a diet program, anyway--it's collected knowledge that I picked up, and I feel like I should pass on what I've learned.


This is me with my best friend M; since I didn't ask her permission to use her photo, I blurred out her face. That's me in the front, in 2005.

In the summer of 2005 when that photo was taken, I was 51 years old, I stand 5'4" tall and I weighed 175. That's a BMI of 30. That's obese. It took all of a year to get down to 137. Today, I vary between 130 and 132, and at my height that's a BMI of 22.7, well within normal range. I'll upload a picture later on (I'm considerably grayer but thinner). Hope this helps somebody out!