My weight problem started very early on. By the time I was 8 years old, I was noticeably chubby. My Mother made comments about it all the time, even in front of my sisters and brothers. She was always accusing me of hiding food, binging on junk, taking too many helpings. She was wrong, my eating habits were no different from that of the other kids, but her badgering had the wrong effect. I don't know what she was thinking, but I guess that in her mind she thought she was trying to help me. She was always very strict and tough, and that's not what I responded to, so she just kind of assumed that was my problem.

I occasionally ate junk food like anyone, but now when I did - I started hiding it, because I didn't want to give my Mother the satisfaction. When she did catch me, she scolded me really badly. I felt terrible, and it just drove me to do it even more often. I was eating more and more junk, and I began to gain weight in my early teens. My Mother of course continued to make comments about it. I didn't know what to do though, it seemed hopeless. I didn't think there was anything I could do to lose the weight, and I thought that if I tried that my Mother would criticize the way I was doing it and try to take control of my dieting. I decided to stop eating altogether. That was a terrible decision, I know, but again I didn't know what to do, and I was young. My Mother tried to ignore it as long as she could, but she became concerned when I had trouble staying awake during the day, and couldn't get out of bed in the morning. A trip to the doctor quickly revealed that, while I had lost 8 pounds, I needed to eat something badly. I learned my lesson there.

The binging problem worked itself out as I got a little older and knew that it was only going to make me fatter. But the weight I had was still an issue, and it wasn't going away. That's when I entered my dieting phase. I started scouring magazines and papers for diet ads, and I think that over a space of about 5 years, I tried nearly every one of them out there. It started small, I tried a diet I stumbled upon in a magazine - it didn't work, but I thought that I'd be able to find one that worked. Countless diets, a number of years, and a small fortune spent all taught me one important thing - they don't work. I didn't want to believe it, but I had to accept it eventually. I just thought that conventional healthy eating wasn't enough, I thought that special diets would be more effective. What I didn't realize was that I had to exercise, I mean I thought I should, but I just couldn't bring myself to do so.

By the time I got out of college, I was more mature, and ready to try something more serious to deal with my weight problem. I had a new job, I was living in a new place, and I really wanted to get a fresh start on life. I started really simple - I began walking to and from work everyday. It was hard to do on those days when I just didn't feel like doing anything, but I was able to stick with it because it was on a regular schedule that I had to keep. Then I changed my diet. In the morning, I put light cream cheese on my bagel instead of bacon or eggs. I replaced my potato chip lunches with chicken salads. I replaced my dinners with healthier versions - vegetarian pizzas, spaghetti, chicken breast, etc. I wasn't gaining weight anymore, which made me happy. And I was feeling a lot better and more energetic. The only thing was that I wasn't losing much weight. After about a year, I had only lost around 5 pounds. I had a long way to go, and I wanted to speed things up a little. I had to do some kind of exercise in the evenings, but I didn't know which one was right for me. So I asked all my friends and anyone I knew that was dieting. In the end, I chose to do aquatic aerobics. Sounds funny, but I really worked! It's great exercise, and the water give a lot of resistance, so you work out every part of your body. My class was actually fun, and I met some great people. It only took three classes per week, and after 6 months of doing that, I've lost more than 50 pounds! The change is very noticeable, and a lot of people are asking me about it. It feels great. I hope to continue losing the weight in the coming months.