Every year I make New Year’s resolutions, and this year, as usual, losing weight was at the top of my list.
It seems simple enough when I write it down. All I have to do is hop on a treadmill every day, watch what I eat and maybe take some vitamins to make sure my body gets what it needs.
But then I remember it was also my top resolution last year.
And the year before.
And the year before that.
In fact, I’ve probably had losing weight on my New Year’s to-do list every year since middle school. Unfortunately, I have found myself falling off the dieting bandwagon year after year, which has only led to stress eating and more weight gain.
To me, eating has always been more than a matter of feeding myself when I’m hungry. It’s a form of recreation, a form of therapy and a crutch. It’s what I turn to when I’m lonely, stressed, depressed or even just bored. It’s mostly emotions that drive me to eat, and oftentimes it’s because of the eating and the weight gain that I’m having those emotions.
It’s a vicious circle, and every year, more and more Americans fall victim to it. Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 66.3 percent of adults over 20 are overweight, obese or morbidly obese, I have always felt alone in my struggles. Walking through the mall, or near UK’s campus, it seems like everyone’s profile is the exact same: They’re slender.
The release of more and more statistics on obesity and the throngs of people I see purchasing dieting books or joining Weight Watchers reminds me, however, that when I try to button my jeans and find them too tight, when I go to American Eagle only to discover I need a larger size, or when I step onto a scale to discover I’ve gained a pound or five, that I am not alone.
My goals have never been to be a beauty queen or to be the model splashed across the cover of Cosmopolitan. I, for the most part, don’t care about the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. I just want to be healthy. To not have to worry about huffing and puffing when I walk into the office just from climbing a few flights of stairs, or dread the scale every time I go to the doctor’s office and the judging glare of the nurses reading the numbers on the digital screen.
So here’s to a new outlook on life, and learning to live the healthy way!
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