K.I.S.S.!

Hi, I'm Tracy and I am overweight.
By a lot.

I have tried various things over the years, my first really big try at losing weight was when I tried Yoga....mind you, I was trying yoga during the same period of my life that my daily diet consisted of a triple whopper and large fries, and that was my entire caloric intake per day.

Guess what, it didn't work.  Sure, I gained a bit of flexibility from the stretching, but did it do anything for my weight? Nope.

Next was a diet that came express from an infomercial.  Believe me, the funds came express from the bank account as well!  Did that one work? You bet it did.  I dropped 52 pounds within a few months.  It was a super restrictive diet, with an immediate and insane slash to my calories.
They even had a website set up for support, except on the website, you weren't allowed to say 'burger' or 'soda' or anything that was not expressly recommended by the plan lest you send the others into a total feeding frenzy....you had to replace whatever the offending food with the word 'ick'.

A rather silly thing to do in my personal opinion.  As soon as I thought I could handle the occasional cheat day and brought back my regular 'ick' foods as advised by the website support, I gained back all 52 pounds and then a few extras.

Food isn't the only enemy in the battle of our bulge. My biggest enemy in this particular battle is myself.  I was brought up eating a certain way and I will say that changing this is one of the most difficult things that I have to do.  And I have to work on it EVERY DAY.  My progress is slow, but I am proud that I am making progress.

I have tried to win this from every angle.  I ate what I wanted, when I wanted it and tried to exercise it off. Guess what again, you can NOT outrun a bad diet, even if you manage to exercise off your excess calories, you really don't do much for your insides...packing your veins with fat, driving your cholesterol up, wearing down your gallbladder, and let's not forget the diabetes.
It IS possible to be thin and in bad health!

I saw a post on Facebook earlier today and it was an old acquaintance asking for a recommendation for gastric bypass.  A few replies later, this person was talking about needing to drop over a hundred pounds and going out for dinner (tonight) at a fast food place.
Ahem, it doesn't work like that!

My mantra of late is K.I.S.S.! (Keep It Simple Stupid!)
Stop it with the shortcuts, they don't work!  Gradually replace the garbage in your diet with REAL food.  Introduce these things to your tastebuds a little at a time.  Get your tail up off the sofa and get it moving.  Give your body what it needs to heal itself and it will!

Just doing this has helped me drop 40 pounds and keep it off for a year now.
Is it hard? You bet it is!  Do I still have a long way to go? Yup!
But more importantly....is it worth it?   Oh hell yes!