The Real News Story

This week on Good Morning America I saw a segment on people who have lost 100 pounds or more. I think they are doing stories all week on people like that, but I only saw today’s.  The woman they featured had lost more like 150 pounds, but she had done it over five years, which was realistic.  She had not gone to a weight loss center so she was not pushing anyone’s product so that alone was totally refreshing.

It is inspiring to see people who have worked hard and changed their lives, but that is a story that is told over and over again on TV.  I would love to see a story on people who were able to lose those fifteen pounds they have been carrying around for the last seventeen years.

As someone who has lost and gained extraordinary amounts of weight it is not the first hundred that is hard, it is the last ten.  The weight that has been with you the longest are those pounds that say, ”I really like you and I want to stay with you.”

Of course it is easier if you are young because you have not lived enough years for those last ten pounds to become semi-permanent.  It is like they are petrified onto your thighs.  The last bit of fat has been adopted by your bones and thinks it is absolutely necessary for your survival.

I write this as a complete novice in the area of getting the last ten off.  I know that I have never even gotten to the last twenty and I am fine with that.  But I think the news should do a story on someone who, after years of trying, was able to get to his or her ideal body weight.  That would be an inspiring news story.

Of course the follow-up mini-series would be how they were able to maintain that ideal body weight.  That is a true miracle.  It is one thing to work out like a serious dancing with the stars contender and eat only the healthiest food to get those final few pounds off, but it is another thing to live your normal life and maintain it.

So I am looking for inspiration from any of you who have struggled and won the final ten to fifteen pound fight especially if you are a middle-aged woman.  I am a year from that fight, but I think I am going to have to start preparing my mind to what is ahead for me and I do love to plan.

I think that the real unsung heroes are the people who are able to deal with a weight gain before it guts the clothes available in their closets.  It may not make a big splash on the morning news, but I think it is an issue that the majority of people would like those tough investigative journalists to take on.