I have often daydreamed about writing a book.  I already have a title:  “Don’t Do What I Did”. It is like a self help book- in reverse. Rather than giving out all of the right answers, I would simply spare people the pain of making my own mistakes. Who am I kidding? How many times have people practically begged me to take their word for why I should not do the things they did? I never listened.

I most certainly did not listen when my female elders urged me to start exercising and eating healthy as a teen or 20-something, before it was too late. Too late for what?  That naive little question has cost me dearly. Despite being told that one day I would wake up and be thirty and eveything I had eaten since I was 15 would suddenly be “there”, all over my body, I kept on with my sugar and salt laden binge fests.

The problem is, these stern warnings from well-meaning mentors fell upon the ears of a well-conditioned junk food addict. I can trace my habitual bad food choices to my earliest memories of cereal. Yes, cereal. I would take equal parts of Eagle Brand Condensed Milk and Rice Krispies and fashion a batch of “Rice Krispy Treats” for one.  Breakfast, the most important meal of the day. It was just the sugar jolt my young mind needed to get me through the challanges of grade school. Before you form a lynch mom against my mom,  she was a working mother when most mothers weren’t. She did the best she could.

My parents slept in on weekends. They trusted my judgement enough to let me get myself up and prepare my breakfast. Usually, with a solid three hours of Warner Brother’s cartoons and a full box of Apple Jacks, I was good to go. Wow, this cereal thing is kind of scary. I am honestly not lashing out at the stuff. In no way am I blaming cereal. I am saying that, for me, there is no internal “off” switch. I am defenseless against the stuff.

I remember many Sunday dinners at my grandmother’s house. That woman could cook- anything. It worked out beautifully, because I could eat anything. My granfather was downright proud of my ability to go back for seconds and, sometimes, even thirds. Poor guy was just trying to encourage me. How could Big Louis have known that, years later,  I would eat myself into a near sugar and salt stupor on a nightly basis, secure in the misguided belief that he would be proud?

I can not pinpoint exactly when, but I suppose it was around the time I realized that I had a closet full of clothes that no longer fit, that the feeling of making grandpa proud was replaced by a deep wave of self loathing.  That self-torment was often followed by  a great feeling of determination, I would research the “best” way to lose weight and get on the right track.

I have learned a lot about what to do. I know how to lose and keep weight off. We all do, don’t we? Exercise regularly and eat healthy food, in proper portions.  Knowledge is power, but it is not as powerful as action. A point driven home by the message in a fortune cookie I opened one day. Before you get all excited about the irony, I should tell you, this was one of those facebook fortune cookies. All fortune, no cookie. Anyway, it said:  the secrets of success won’t work unless you do.

Wow, having typed that out and now re-reading it, it is not really all that profound. But, it was the message I needed. I can Google search diseases that might cause my weight gain all I want. I am pretty sure it is the nightly pretzel and Nutella trance eating sessions, not a stomach tumor, that is behind my expanding belly. So, having accepted this, it is time for me to do what I need to do, and stop talking about it.

It is sort of amusing to me that I am here, in this moment, after having spent the last three years taking up running. I used all of the tools and inspiration and the secrets so readily made available to achieve some big goals. I ran a flippin marathon. I am the only person I know who managed to get fat training for a marathon, but that is just proof of what an over-achiever I am.

So, I am going to sincerely try this. I am going to give this a whirl. I am signed up on the Livestrong site. I keep a food diary and try to get a good balance of fats, carbs and protein and calories. You can re-read this if you like. It is really that boring. I have tried South Beach, Jenny Craig, taking pictures of my gut with my cellphone (yeah, really), and even some different diet pills.

Just trying to do the healthy thing is really the only method that I have consistently read and/or heard actually works. It is not dramatic. It is not 10 pounds in a week. Every short cut I have tried has only prolonged this whole thing. In the last ten years, I have lost an accumulated 70- or so- pounds. I have also gained it back, and then some.

Again, I say, if you are reading this right now, and you are thinking, “don’t waste my time with this crap”, for Pete’s sake, don’t read it. It is not that complicated. But, if you are fighting the good fight, too, then feel free to comment and chime in. It is free. If you get bored, you can just click the “x” in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

I am not an expert. I am just a person who has made a lot of health mistakes. I will share some of them, and maybe you won’t do what I did. OR, you will, and you will wake up and be 30, or some other awful age and everything you have eaten since you were 15 will suddenly appear in little puffy clumps of fat all over your body. Have a nice day.