I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror and saw someone else! That was wishful thinking. I am a former obese person and know the feelings I had all those years when I refused to have a mirror close to me. I still remember the awful feelings in my mind about what I had become. I could see the shame on peoples faces. They were polite, but could I ever feel the stares. I learned to hate myself and continued to eat in order to sooth my pain. Until one day, I really had had enough and started searching for the better me. You know what? Under all that skin, I was there and I am so proud of myself today. Sharing my pride has become a mission for me and I need to tell you why. Do you want to listen?

Obesity - Do you know the one major difference between being obese or not?

ENERGY.

Why do you eat so much everyday has to be on your mind most of the time if you are obese. Unless you are sick and have a previous condition that makes you fat or that all your children were born obese or you are genetically predisposed to be chubby or all your friends are plus sized and you just joined the club or you live in a neighborhood for seriously overweight people only(I am getting out of breath), their is no reason for you to accept being like this for the rest of your life.

That was a mouthful and I know you are thinking," who is this guy and what is the point?"

• I am an expert on obesity because I was one, just like you. If you keep reading this article, you will not get infected by any bug, well maybe only the,"need to change" bug. I use to eat until I was so full I could hardly walk.
• I could eat 8 hamburgers with all the trimmings and still be hungry. I just felt this incredible need to eat and eat and eat some more. I never questioned why I needed to eat, I just kept on eating.
• I did not listen to anyone and just kept on eating until I could no longer tie my shoelaces one morning and went to my computer and asked, "why do we eat?"

My search engine gave me about 54 million answers to that question and what I got out of that was a wealth of knowledge that astounded me. They did not teach me this in college. I am talking about my life here, and my families lives. Still reading?

The biggest reason why we eat is for ENERGY. Their are many other reasons like pleasure, habit etc. but ENERGY is the #1 reason. After that discovery, I asked myself,"If I am eating for energy, why am I so tired all the time?"

Changing all my bad habits did not happen overnight. I did a lot of research and needed to understand where I was going wrong. I got mad at my doctor, at my friends, at my former teachers and many of the people around me for not stopping me. I did and still do assume total responsibility for my body and today I am eating only for energy, well OK, maybe still for a little pleasure. Now I know how, and why I need to eat and you can too.

I still have a hard time realizing that the difference between being obese or not is ENERGY, can you?

Food for thought.