Tons of Fun

I was never fat until I came to live in Eureka Springs. Here is where my husband and I retired after careers in secondary education. I was fifty two years old and weighed 135 lbs.

I am five feet, five inches tall on a very small frame. To give you an idea of my bone structure, I wear a size five on my ring fingers and size seven shoes. Obviously, I was at the top of my weight allowance when I arrived here.

After seven years of living on good southern cooking, not exercising and enjoying alcoholic beverages everyday, I had gained more than thirty pounds. In 2004 I weighed 168 lbs! In that same year I had three TIAs (Trans Ischemic Attacks) or mini strokes. My pancreas was sending out signals of failure and my liver was becoming fatty.

I have had heart disease ever since I was twenty five. That means all my other organs had to work harder due to my weakened heart. Adding over thirty pounds of unnecessary weight was just too hard on my system, but I wouldn't listen to my doctor's warnings. I've always been a mule head when it came to making life changes.

It was at the end of 2009 that I was diagnosed with diabetes. Since then I have lost twenty five pounds. I need to lose ten more to be safe and I hope free of diabetic medications.

All this personal info is leading up to a very sensitive subject, but one America can no longer ignore. We cannot claim that obesity is an old person's disease. One out of four elementary children is overweight or obese. In 1962, I remember there were only four fat kids in my senior class of 700 students. How can our country defend itself with such unfit young people? How will our country have a future when our children will die before their parents?

Just take a look at the "fatty, fatty two by fours" that struggle single file up the stairway by the flat iron building. Their behinds, on both men and women, look like the backsides of Belgian draft horses. And then there are the folks that view the town from their vehicles, driving at the speed of five miles per hour, because they are incredibly immense and can't walk our hills.

Go to Walmart and check out what the obese buy. Most of the food in their carts is junk food and bio-engineered products. Very few fresh vegetables or fruits are purchased by these extremely overweight people. Then watch these folks as they push their heaping carts. They lean over the carts and push with their elbows. Their posture is deplorable because their backs cannot support their gigantic stomachs. Even fat teenagers push their carts with their elbows! Then take a look at the sizes of clothing that are available for purchase. The small and medium sizes are scarce. Most of the sizes are large, Xlarge, XXlarge, and XXXlarge. If those sizes aren't large enough, there are even more ample sizes measured by hips or chests in inches. Gad Zooks!

Please, please people stop eating empty calories. Shop the perimeter of your grocery store. That's were all the fresh food is marketed. Rediscover how good real food can taste. Then exercise and lose weight for your life. You only get one ride on this merry-go-round. Make it a good healthy one. If you believe in a higher power, then don't defile his most precious gift by practicing gluttony. Instead, live a life of self control and you will feel great. I sure can attest to that.