I had no idea how out of shape I was until one day I was eating a bag of Cheetos and got winded, orange fingers and all. I was wheezing and my heart was beating like I just beat a group of hippies to death with a tie-dyed sock full of nickels. When you are so fat you get out of breath just trying to eat your fat ass to death its time for a CHANGE.

Throughout my life I’ve been everything from bulimic skinny as a kid to morbidly obese in my late high school years. Weight has been a real struggle but its not one that I will blame on anyone but my own fat ass self. There are very few instances where a person is overweight for a medical reason which is beyond their control. Meaning that if they didn’t eat so much and actually went outside and did some exercise over the course of a few months or years they would inevitably lose weight.

Obesity is just a byproduct that present-day industrialized societies have to live with and interestingly enough a staple of an industrialized society is one in which even the poor people are fat. In the future this will all be cured from birth but right now our bodies store the extra nutrients we stuff in our pie holes as fat. Stop eating when you aren’t hungry (easier said than done, I know, FOOD GOOD) and that fat store will diminish, exercise and it will diminish even quicker.

I honestly see nothing wrong with being fat, I really don’t. I’ve been overweight for almost half my life. I like setting unrealistic goals for myself, ones when left unfulfilled lead to me polishing off an entire cherry pie and half gallon of Blue Bell ice cream in one sitting while I watch re-runs of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in a day long session of self loathing.

Since the goals which I usually fail to complete are ones I jump head long into, I decided about 1.5 months ago to try a bit of moderation and learn to run the proper way. My logic being, if I became good at running I could lose the pounds I put on during my spells of over consumption by simply getting on the track.

Rather than trying to hit the ground “running” and busting out a mile on my first session, which would certainly hurt and put me off to the whole goal for good (which would lead to more pie), I started out small and walked the course for 2 weeks. Setting little benchmarks for myself (which I’ll share in a future article). I can now run the entire 3-mile course which is in a very hilly area of LA called Silverlake. In under 2 months I’ve gone from not having the strength to finish off a bag of Cheetos to running 3-miles a day.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be a Calvin Klein underwear model (an opinion that is based less on my appearance and more on the fact that I’m not a homosexual) but I do feel I can bring positive change to the ways I enjoy life. Being really fat and self-conscious can take the fun out of most things. So its time for a CHANGE! You get it? Like Obama…oh nevermind.

(I’ll let everyone continue to think that I wear a yellow helmet and Mardi-Gras beads while I stuff my face.)