Secrets of a Former Fat Girl Read Online Free PDF

The Former Fat Girl’s Cure
    Back in my old pre-Jazzercise days, the thought of stepping into a health club made me want to reach for the Tums. But there are places where buns of steel and showgirl cleavage aren’t part of the membership requirements. Take a tour, try a class, and see for yourself at these health clubs:
The YMCA. At my Y, where I have been a member for more than ten years, I see ex-college football players working out alongside ninety-one-year-old great-grandmas. There is always an amazing slice of life no matter what Y you visit.
Community fitness centers. These are very family oriented and less likely to be on the singles pick-up circuit.
Churches. How intimidating can the coffee and doughnuts room at the Episcopal church be? (I had been there many times for the doughnuts before I discovered Jazzercise.) More and more churches are including yoga and other fitness classes in their schedules. And who knows, you might get some points in the spiritual department, too.
Women-only gyms. We know that girls can be just as brutal as men (if not more), but women-only health clubs often attract women who aren’t there to attract men. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time feeling good about myself in my husband’s old running shorts when I’m surrounded by women who look like they should be bar-hopping on a Saturday night. Some women-only clubs, like the Curves chain, specifically focus on minimizing the intimidation factor for their members.
Private training. Depending on your personality and budget, working out with a trainer in a private studio—where it’s just you and her (and I would go with a her)—might be the way to go. Of course, that’s the priciest option here, but the size of the check you write can be a powerful motivator. (They cash the check whether you show up or not, so you’d better go to make it worthwhile.)
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    And that, I know now, is what really made the difference this time: my single-minded focus on exercise. 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, motivating, “I can” messages I needed at the beginning of this process.
    I realized that because 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.”
    Oh, sure, I lost at least a few pounds every time I tried a new program, but the problem was that I loved food. I didn’t just love to eat it. I loved everything about it—making it, shopping for it, reading about it. Telling me I couldn’t eat the stuff I loved was like trying to keep a teenage girl away from her bad-apple boyfriend—down to the deception she would use to hook up with him anyway. I was trying to deny myself one of the things I enjoyed most, and it just plain didn’t feel good. I was a failure because I couldn’t control my appetite. I couldn’t live without chocolate or pasta or burgers and fries, at least not for more than a couple of weeks. I was so frustrated by all my attempts at dieting that I really didn’t believe I could ever succeed. I felt weak. I wanted to hide. I didn’t know if I had the will to even try again.
    What I needed, I know now, was an infusion of power, and I got it when I started exercising. Instead of saying no, no, no to my appetite, exercise was all about saying yes, saying I can, feeling the power of pushing myself further than I ever had—even if it was to the music of Flashdance while wearing a lumpy leotard. It fed my ego, the only part of me (except maybe my cup size) that needed any kind of enhancement. I began to crave that feeling of personal power almost as much as a Hershey’s bar. Almost.
    And that, dear future Former Fat Girls, is why I’ve made Forget Dieting secret number