Susan and I have struggled to rightsize our bodies for years. Susan grew up as a “fatty” and I grew up as a beanpole. When I met her in 1977, Susan had just hit her weight loss goal of 125 pounds (or so, I don’t remember exactly) by using WeightWatchers for a good long time. I weighed about 150 pounds.
Over the next three decades, as we had six kids in nine years and built our careers as a doctor and a lawyer, we each grew to between 200 and 250 pounds. Up and down and down and up. Over and over again. And then something just clicked.
My dad, who was even more greatly obese than I have ever been, had a stroke and that scared me almost to death as I faced the fact that I looked very much like him. So, I saw my doctor, officially confirmed what I had known for a long time, and got diagnosed with diabetes type two.
I immediately stepped into our apartment complex’s gymnasium, started doing three-a-days, and went to work crazily losing weight from well over 250 pounds down to 175 pounds. I relaxed a bit and over the next several years, my weight went back up and up some more and down a bit and up and up some more and down a bit and up some more , a tenth of a pound at a time, until I was back to almost 200 again.
Then something clicked in Susan and she went crazy eating almost nothing but a limited number of nutritionally-balanced food bars (Clif, Luna) and exercising insanely twice a day and she lost back down to 125 pounds again. That motivated me to get back on the treadmill twice and three times a day again and adopt most of Joel Furman’s Eat To Live philosophy and I lost back down to 153.
I looked Great! All the time! Susan looked better than Great! All the time! and then we ran through some very stressful times in our professional and personal lives and our eating habits got a little worse again (it’s my fault, I talked Susan in to eating more regular food and then I started eating more regular food) and we edged back up a bit.
But now we are getting our lives back under control and getting back to the basic steps of rightsizing our bodies once again. And these basic steps are:
- Eat.
- Eat less.
- Eat less CRAPF (the P is silent and the acronym stands for commercially refined and processed food).
- Move.
- Move our fat asses.
- Move our fat asses more.
- Do all this all day every day.
- Do all this all day every day for the rest of our lives.
This is the program we have proven, time and time again, that works every time, making our weights go down, and, for as long as we maintain it, stay down.
That’s the big bugaboo about this rightsizing your body thing. If you don’t constantly do it and pay attention to it and stick with it day in and day out, then you will slip and slide all over like we have done all our lives and eventually end back up in an emergency room having your first (or God forbid your last) stroke or heart attack or whatever it is your body uses to tell you “Enough already! Stop this insanity! Or you are going to kill us both!”
And that’s why we are writing a book entitled Eat Less CRAPF (the P is silent) and Move Your Fat Ass More! To share our story and our method with you. And hear your stories and your methods. And, most importantly, support each other as we all rightsize ourselves together and stay that way and be Great! All the time!
We are going to ask you to help us write this book and teach you what we know and learn from you what you know. Because, together, we can do this thing and rightsize our bodies, minds, and spirits and be Great! All the time!
So, please, help us now by sending us your comments below. What size are you? Do you like being that size? What have you done about it? What are you willing to do about it? How can we help each other get rightsized and stay that way?
[reminder]Do you like the way you look? Why or why not? What are you willing to do about it? How can we help each other get rightsized and stay that way?[/reminder]
In the meantime, you GOTTABGATT!, so go out there today and be Great! All the time!