Losing Weight

At the age of 3 I was a normal weight kid. I was a bit athletic from the age of 3-6 at about 7yrs of age I started gaining weight but not too much. It wasn't until I was 9yrs old that I started packing on the pounds. The reason is that I stopped playing sports and began to eat a lot but it was also the quality of the food a lot of sugary drinks and fried food.  This lasted up until the age of 14 by then I was pretty heavy.

At about 14 -15 yrs of age I began to play sports again and growing in height so the pounds started to drop.  I did not watch as much TV as before and didn't eat as much.  At this point I was skinny what most people would consider skinny but not lean.  To me the word lean and skinny are different lean means low body fat to the point where there is muscle definition and six pack abs showing.  Skinny is used for those that have flat stomachs but no muscle definition or vascularity.  I remained skinny for the next few years but still significant body fat so I did not have visible abs and not much muscle mass.  I would try to do workouts at home and lift whatever I found that resembled a weight.  I was broke I couldn't afford a computer. I went to the library to read magazines to see how to do certain exercises then I would go home and hope that I would perform them correctly.

Eventually I joined a gym and started the journey.  During my teen years it was obvious that the weight I gained as a kid was not going to go away anytime soon.  It took years to gain and it didn't want to go with out putting up a good fight.  Your body seems to get used to body fat or muscle mass the longer you hold on to it.  Along the way my body hit a lot of plateaus there were periods that it would not respond to the diet and I struggled to get rid of the fat around my stomach.  At this point I got rid of all sugary drinks and only drank water.  As I hit another plateau I got rid of another item such as rice or pasta.  The lower abs were the hardest for those I raised my cardio and got rid of most carbs.  The same is true when adding muscle I also had to change things a bit to get more mass.
Everybody struggles along the way you need to make changes to progress depending on your body type.

There are many body types some struggle with gaining weight others have trouble losing it and may be very sensitive to carbs.  Some people have skinny legs and arms but gain fat only in their midsections, some gain it all over.

The point is to be healthy and happy with yourself don't become obsessed with changing your appearance.  I don't want to pressure my future kids into being fit but I will try to get them involved in the kitchen so they can learn about healthy foods.  The reason is that the decision I made to eat a lot and not exercise as a kid caught up to me later on in life.  I am glad I did not go beyond the weight I reached, it would have been harder to burn that fat off.  If the weight gets out of control you can end up with skin that will hang once you lose weight and only surgery can help you with that, you don't want unnecessary surgery.  However you go about losing weight remember to reward and compliment yourself along the way.