Yes you can: One girl’s struggle to lose weight

Secrets of a Former Fat Girl: How to Lose Two, Four (or More!) Dress Sizes — And Find Yourself Along the Way’ is a realistic account of a former fat girl that will appeal to any woman who is battling to lose weight. Lisa Delaney was executive director of Health Magazine and she has also contributed to Vogue, Cooking Light and Reader’s Digest. She writes with compassion and humor about a subject she knows well. More than any nutritionist or diet specialist, she understands what it means to be overweight because she has been fat herself.
The first valid point she makes is that dietitians spend too much time on details such as how many carbohydrate or calories are necessary to lose weight or which is better, low fat or low cal, but they are completely ignoring the real issue.
“The real issue was not ‘How do I lose weight’ It was ‘How do I begin to think about myself as someone who can lose weight?’ Through my experience I’m convinced that being a ‘Former Fat Girl’ is more about changing how you think about yourself and how you carry yourself in the world than what diet plan you’re on or whose workout you follow. And that has implications far beyond the size of jeans you wear. It means that you are building the confidence that will allow you to be a success story in every aspect of your life, not just on the scale… I know you can get there and I am going to show how. In this book, I’ll share the seven secrets I discovered on my journey to becoming a Former Fat Girl, the secrets I know will work for you too,” says Lisa Delaney.
As her weight plummeted at 185 pounds, Lisa joins a friend in an aerobics class. Her worst fear was that the other girls would laugh at her but that didn’t happen. While she was working out, she wasn’t thinking about the way she looked while doing the exercises. In fact, she forgot she was a ‘fat girl’. She realized instead that she could move, dance, and exercise.
“I was exercising for the positive things it was doing for my mind and my body, not to work off the bag of chips I had at lunch…Exercise did two things for me. It helped me begin to break through the image I had of myself as a fat girl, and it fed me the encouraging and motivating ‘I can’ messages I needed…Most diets emphasize what you’re eating or more specifically, what you shouldn’t be eating, they are doomed to fail. They are all about ‘You can’t’ and ‘You shouldn’t’” says Lisa Delaney. At this point you might have guessed that her first secret is simply to forget about dieting. Exercise at its best empowers you. Dieting is saying continuously ‘no’ to the high calorific foods you like, whereas exercise is all about saying yes. Saying I can do it. And I can push myself even further.
However, to make sure you keep up the exercise it is important to choose a gym with a convenient location and not to overdo it. Aches and pains from exercising too hard are the main reasons that women give up exercise altogether. To avoid this you have to apply the 10 percent rule which allows you each week to increase the intensity, distance or difficulty level of your workout by a maximum of 10 percent.
Another useful tip when you are planning to lose weight is to keep it a secret. By not telling everyone that you are going on a diet, you insulate yourself from the doubts, criticism that could hurt you and prevent you from reaching your goal. On the other hand you will begin to learn to rely on your own inner reserve to keep you motivated and give you willpower…As you reduce your dependence on others for motivation and begin to focus inward you’ll be surprised at how strong you really are.
But some of you may wonder how they can remain motivated if they have no one to confine in? The answer is: use the Internet. Here are a few useful sites which will answer your questions : www.ediets.com; www.webmd.com; and www.weightwatchers.com
Another secret the author shares with us is that when you are fat, you are not like other people, you are different.
“Realizing that I had a unique relationship with food helped me stop comparing myself to the people around me and to accept that I had to make my own choices based on who I was…I began to stop expecting myself to leave half of my dessert on the plate as other girls seemed to do so easily. I began to accept the fact that for me it was better not to order it in the first place, because once it was in front of me, there was no stopping.”
The book also contains some useful tips about nutrition. I learned that in fact the low-fat or no-fat versions of cookies are practically the same as the full fat version when you read carefully the labels. Many manufacturers increase the amount of sugar to help distract your taste from the missing fat. So don’t be under the impression that you can eat as many low fat biscuits as you want. It is far wiser to eat one or two regular cookies which will amount to far less calories than if you splurged on the lighter version.
“There’s a reason why the number of completely fat-free products has dwindled over the last several years. Many are completely inedible and unsatisfying. Furthermore, low-fat stuff is a different story. Low-fat cheeses, sour, cream, yogurt, and milk are all virtually indistinguishable from full fat stuff in recipes or alone.”
Lisa Delaney gives some excellent tips on how to dress. It is wise to forget the size and focus on an outfit that fits you. Therefore do not buy a pair of trousers that you have squeezed into because it happens to be your size. You must remember that there are no size standards in the fashion industry. A size 8 in one brand might be smaller or larger in another brand.
“The other basic thing I have learned is that every woman has a waist, and a waist must be accentuated. Whether you’re 10, 20, or 50 pounds overweight, what they call a structured jacket will look more flattering…A jacket nipped in at the waist shows off your curves, one with a slightly higher waistband can take the emphasis off your tummy,” says Lisa Delaney.
Unlike most diet experts, the author has suffered from obesity for the first twenty-five years of her life. She knows how it feels when you are overweight and known as ‘the fat girl’. This book has been dubbed as “brutally honest”. The author not only tells the story of her personal battle to lose weight but she also shares all the wisdom she learned along the way. Lisa Delaney is now 117 pounds and has kept it for the last twenty five years and her story tells you just how you can do it too.

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