Be the Change

One day recently I saw a lady yelling at the owner of a shop that sells items to smoke marijuana with among other things. The thing I noticed about the yelling lady was that she was more than a bit overweight. I notice that sometimes judgmental Christians are also overweight (the ones spewing hate to gays like Westboro Baptist). Yes, people who buy marijuana and smoke it are harming their bodies. Yes it's illegal, but that is a whole other blog. People who are fat and continue to stay that way are not any better at loving themselves than drug users or alcoholics.

I know I may be hurting feelings here and that is not my intention. I want to be honest and if the epidemic of overweight and obese people keeps getting sugarcoated, the problem will not get better. I have never been obese but I have been overweight before. I worked extremely hard to return to and continue to work hard to maintain a healthy weight. I feel better about myself and life in general even when bad things happen in my life. I work out almost daily. I take the stairs. I park far away from an entrance. I eat a mostly healthy diet limiting eating out, buying premade/processed foods, and sweets (even though I LOVE them).

I have been paying attention to some of the behaviors noticeable in social situations and some posts on social networks by overweight people. I notice that many of them are not active on a regular basis, the diet they choose encourages the weight to stay on, and they even appear to have low self-esteem the majority of the time. They seem to emanate the "I can't do it" attitude about exercise and try diets for a few weeks or months instead of making lifestyle changes for LIFE.

I used to behave differently and I was totally out of shape, mentally defeated, and tired all the time. I was a couch potato. Roller derby changed that for me. I started working out 2 hours 3 times a week. Loving this sport so much motivated me to do even better. I started working out at least 5 times a week OUTSIDE of derby, many times doing 2 workouts in one day. I liked the changes in my body, and it wasn't just noticeable weight loss or muscle definition, it was changes in my mental clarity, positive attitude, circulation, sleeping patterns, no more migraine headaches, blood pressure, and many more noticeable healthy benefits.

The sad thing to me is children modeling the behavior they see in parents with bad eating and activity habits just like they model other negative behaviors. This epidemic seems to burden overweight/obese children with a lifetime of health problems and/or death at an early age. Then they pass it on to their children and so on. It is just getting worse over time. Kidshealth.org states that the percentage of overweight children is growing at an alarming rate with 1 out of 3 kids being considered overweight. It  saddens me that I can go to an event and see mostly overweight people in the room. It is overwhelming to think a room full of people don't love themselves enough to do something about their weight and stick around for the people that love them and need them. If you don't love yourself how can you possibly love anyone else?

Find your roller derby. And even if you don't find your roller derby start by making small changes like never taking elevators/escalators and only using the stairs or parking far away. Start making time for a 15-minute family walk each evening. Ride your bike to work. Stop buying crappy food. Cook from scratch or learn to cook if you don't know how. READ about it. If you know what changes you can make and don't make the changes how can a different result be obtained?

Look at your children. You would do anything for them. Do this.

I have things to work on like perfectionism, toxic parenting, and patience. I am not perfect and I am not judging overweight people for not being perfect. I am bettering myself and I just want the same for other people. I want everyone to love themselves so in turn they can love the world. Being better starts with a beginning but it does NOT end.