Read Online Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul by Jack Canfield - Free Book Online
Authors: Jack Canfield
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and realized that I was 255 pounds.
I am my father’s daughter.
For a few years, I tried to find excuses. It was my metabolism. I ate the same way I had always eaten, so why else was I fat? Maybe I had a thyroid problem. As more years passed and I moved into my forties, I blamed the media for promoting a “thin culture” of unrealistic body shapes. I scoffed at friends on fad diets, convincing myself that my diet was healthier than theirs. I used to laugh about my sister-in-law’s skin turning orange from eating too many carrots. Surely, a few extra pounds were preferable to that?
I am my father’s daughter.
When my doctor diagnosed me with high blood pressure and prescribed medication, he told me that if I lost weight, I probably wouldn’t need the medication. When I fell down some stairs at work and the clinic x-rayed my knee, I was told that the fall had not injured my knee but that my knee didn’t look good, due to the strain of my weight. I decided I needed to make a change in my lifestyle.
I am my father’s daughter.
After six months of half-hour walks, four to five times a week, I lost forty pounds. Then I added weight circuit training three times a week and monitored the portions of food on my plate, and now, almost two years later, I am seventy-five pounds lighter. At a recent family get-together to celebrate my father’s five-year anniversary of giving up smoking, relatives exclaimed over my trimmer, fitter figure and asked me how I did it. I caught my dad’s eye.
I am my father’s daughter.
Deborah P. Kolodji
Gone to the Dogs
M y doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.
OrsonWelles
I’ve struggled with weight problems all my life.
During college, I tried every fad diet out there, from grapefruit juice with every meal to two weeks of nothing but boiled rice and fruit. Fromthe time I was nineteen until I turned forty, my weight yo-yoed by as much as sixty pounds. I’d keep it off for a year or two, and then gradually the needle on the bathroom scale would creep back up.
Then a personal miracle entered my life, in the form of two Labrador retrievers.
My wife and I had been married for about a year when we got our second dog. Harley, our chocolate Lab, had just turned eight months when her sister, Buffy, a yellow Lab, was born. On that day, our lives changed forever.
All dogs require regular exercise to stay fit, but anyone who has ever owned a Labrador knows that it’s a breed with boundless energy. Most experts agree a Lab needs at least two miles of brisk walking each day, and a typical Lab can do that and then be ready for a few hours of swimming or running afterward.
Harley and Buffy are no exception to the rule. We soon discovered that if we didn’t give them a good workout each day, all their pent-up energy would lead them into all sorts of trouble around the house. As soon as Buffy was old enough, we instituted a regular exercise program for them, designed to tire them out so they’d sleep all night.
Weekdays begin at 6:00 AM with a brisk, half-mile to mile walk, depending on the weather. Only the heaviest snows or rains keep us from our morning constitutional. Then, after work, we do a minimum of two miles, often accompanied by games of chase-the-ball or stick. In the warm weather, we will often increase it to three miles.
But it doesn’t end there. On the weekends the afternoon walk begins earlier, and usually involves a nice three- or four-mile hike in one of the local state parks.
Harley and Buffy are now eight and seven, respectively, and their exercise program, combined with nutritious food and no table scraps, has them in better shape than “any other Lab I’ve seen,” according to our veterinarian.
The dogs love their daily exercise; the same can’t be said for their masters. It’s never easy to drag yourself from a warm bed on a cold or rainy winter day, bundle up, drive to the park and then trudge through
I am my father’s daughter.
For a few years, I tried to find excuses. It was my metabolism. I ate the same way I had always eaten, so why else was I fat? Maybe I had a thyroid problem. As more years passed and I moved into my forties, I blamed the media for promoting a “thin culture” of unrealistic body shapes. I scoffed at friends on fad diets, convincing myself that my diet was healthier than theirs. I used to laugh about my sister-in-law’s skin turning orange from eating too many carrots. Surely, a few extra pounds were preferable to that?
I am my father’s daughter.
When my doctor diagnosed me with high blood pressure and prescribed medication, he told me that if I lost weight, I probably wouldn’t need the medication. When I fell down some stairs at work and the clinic x-rayed my knee, I was told that the fall had not injured my knee but that my knee didn’t look good, due to the strain of my weight. I decided I needed to make a change in my lifestyle.
I am my father’s daughter.
After six months of half-hour walks, four to five times a week, I lost forty pounds. Then I added weight circuit training three times a week and monitored the portions of food on my plate, and now, almost two years later, I am seventy-five pounds lighter. At a recent family get-together to celebrate my father’s five-year anniversary of giving up smoking, relatives exclaimed over my trimmer, fitter figure and asked me how I did it. I caught my dad’s eye.
I am my father’s daughter.
Deborah P. Kolodji
Gone to the Dogs
M y doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.
OrsonWelles
I’ve struggled with weight problems all my life.
During college, I tried every fad diet out there, from grapefruit juice with every meal to two weeks of nothing but boiled rice and fruit. Fromthe time I was nineteen until I turned forty, my weight yo-yoed by as much as sixty pounds. I’d keep it off for a year or two, and then gradually the needle on the bathroom scale would creep back up.
Then a personal miracle entered my life, in the form of two Labrador retrievers.
My wife and I had been married for about a year when we got our second dog. Harley, our chocolate Lab, had just turned eight months when her sister, Buffy, a yellow Lab, was born. On that day, our lives changed forever.
All dogs require regular exercise to stay fit, but anyone who has ever owned a Labrador knows that it’s a breed with boundless energy. Most experts agree a Lab needs at least two miles of brisk walking each day, and a typical Lab can do that and then be ready for a few hours of swimming or running afterward.
Harley and Buffy are no exception to the rule. We soon discovered that if we didn’t give them a good workout each day, all their pent-up energy would lead them into all sorts of trouble around the house. As soon as Buffy was old enough, we instituted a regular exercise program for them, designed to tire them out so they’d sleep all night.
Weekdays begin at 6:00 AM with a brisk, half-mile to mile walk, depending on the weather. Only the heaviest snows or rains keep us from our morning constitutional. Then, after work, we do a minimum of two miles, often accompanied by games of chase-the-ball or stick. In the warm weather, we will often increase it to three miles.
But it doesn’t end there. On the weekends the afternoon walk begins earlier, and usually involves a nice three- or four-mile hike in one of the local state parks.
Harley and Buffy are now eight and seven, respectively, and their exercise program, combined with nutritious food and no table scraps, has them in better shape than “any other Lab I’ve seen,” according to our veterinarian.
The dogs love their daily exercise; the same can’t be said for their masters. It’s never easy to drag yourself from a warm bed on a cold or rainy winter day, bundle up, drive to the park and then trudge through
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