Hi, I’m Jen. I’m a 59 year old woman who is cruising toward 60 who has been overweight since age 8. Actually, perhaps before then, but age 8 is when I was cognizant of it and people started making me very aware and self-conscious of it. For the record, if you are a parent, a grandparent, or any adult with children in your life in any way, Don’t Do That. Shaming children, fussing at them about their weight, making them self-conscious of it doesn’t help. You are likely doing harm. I know I was harmed. Telling a child he or she needs to lose weight without providing any realistic, compassionate help isn’t doing anything except setting them up for mental anguish and disordered eating. Shaming a child for eating and being overweight while bringing junk food into the house, while not establishing good eating habits for the entire family isn’t going to help that child. Period.

I bought my first calorie counter booklet at the age of 13. It was “pocket sized” and sold at the grocery store checkout line alongside the candy bars. I wore that book out reading it. By the time I was 16, my brothers called me “the walking calorie counter”. I could tell you how many calories were in all the foods. I read every magazine article about diets that I could get my hands on. I dieted, I exercised and I lost weight. Over and over through the decades. Over and over through the decades I’d gain that weight back. As difficult as it is to lose weight, it’s even more difficult to maintain weight loss. We must eat food to survive. There is a lot of food out there. We get tired of being restrictive and always thinking about every morsel of food that goes in our mouths. We want to eat “like normal people”. We take our foot off the gas pedal and find ourselves back to being overweight. Even if we are very educated about it, its tough. Changing habits and creating new ones that support our health goals is the key. It works. However, you have to keep doing it. You can’t stop. You must create a lifestyle way of eating & moving that becomes your new normal. Overly restrictive diets and exercise regimens don’t work because its the very rare person who is going to keep doing that forever.

So what is the answer? Give up? Give up on being healthier and having better quality of life? I don’t think that can be the answer. What about when you are older and it isn’t so much about aesthetics any more, but actual LIFE. Poor lifestyle choices start slapping us in the face. High blood pressure. Type 2 diabetes. Heart disease. Fatty liver disease. Joints that have lots of wear and tear. Osteoporosis. Sarcopenia. Inability to do all the things you want to do, need to do to keep yourself living independently in your own home under your own power.

I know where I am now and it is focusing on eating foods that support my body so it can thrive and exercise that improves my cardiovascular health and makes me functionally stronger so I can keep moving and do all the things I need to do. The number on the scale has less power over me. I will never be thin. I won’t be morbidly obese. I will be healthy as I possibly can be and strong. I won’t obsess over every morsel of food, but I will be mindful and aware of what I’m eating and how it serves me. I will strength train and walk outdoors in all sorts of weather as my lifestyle exercise. I will celebrate my good metabolic health markers and the fact that I don’t need prescription medications for chronic lifestyle diseases. I will celebrate that I feel good.

I encourage you to stop obsessing and worrying about aesthetics and what the number on the scale is. I also encourage you to not bury your head in the sand if you are significantly overweight and it is effecting your health, your life. If you carry lots of fat in your abdomen, it is detrimental to your health. The fat we can see and feel is subcutaneous fat. The fat we cannot see is visceral fat. Visceral fat surrounds our vital organs and it is dangerous. Excess fat storage in your liver is incredibly dangerous. If your waist circumference is greater than 35 inches if you are woman and 40 inches if you are a man, you are at risk. Abdominal obesity has causes within our control; those causes are poor diet, sedentary lifestyle and alcohol use. Those are things that we can control with some lifestyle changes.

Small changes, step by step, lead to big changes. Start with some small changes and keep going, keep building those habits. Start setting good examples for your children so they can develop good habits early on in regard to how they eat and move.

Stay HEALTHY. Be STRONG. Get AFTER IT.