Stay the course
Over the course of eight years, I’ve lost 170 pounds. For about four years I was not actively trying to lose weight, but I was able to maintain the 100 pounds I lost. From 2009 to now I’ve lost about 70 more pounds. Yesterday, when I wrote “Real Talk” I was merely trying to get across the point that weight loss, especially for folks who are obese can not be tackled in a short span of time. It takes hard work, persistent, and a kick butt attitude. Can it be done? Yes! I’m proof, but please again take your time. There will be obstacles mental, physical, perhaps even spiritual but just stay the course – you’ll get there. Coach says these statements to me all the time: “One day at a time,” and “This is about who can last the longest.”
Surely, I wish I was at my goal weight by now. To look in the mirror sometimes is discouraging. I’ve worked hard and I’m still considered obese by the BMI and fat to the masses. I try not to dwell on it much because I’m in a much better place: I’m smaller, healthier, and fitter than I was and if I would have never started. I can’t even imagine life if I were still trapped inside that miserable, lonely 388 pounds body. So I stick with it because the alternative, well just isn’t an option.
So as you embark on your journey to fitness and health. Start strong, but be realistic about what it really means to be healthy and fit, and what it will take to lose the weight. Start strong, stay the course, end even stronger, and remember “Everything worth having is worth working for.
” 
Chrisetta Mosley
I am a product – and now a survivor – of childhood obesity. As a child, my family always told me that my extra weight was merely baby fat and I’d eventually grow out of it. I never did. Instead, my childhood is filled with memories of not being able to ride a bike, flattening its training wheels from being over the recommended weight, and avoiding P.E. classes by any means necessary. For years, I wore my fatness like a wounded soldier wears a Purple Heart - with pride. I owned the look. I dressed it up. I worked the room. There wasn't a skinny girl who intimidated me. I made sure my hair was laid just right. Nails polished. Outfits coordinated to the tee. Accessories to compliment every outfit. But everyone has a breaking point, and mine came in the spring of 2004 when I tipped the scale at nearly 400 pounds 388 to be exact. I was MISERABLE trapped inside of that body. I no longer wore my Purple Heart with pride. Rather, I was ashamed and frightened. Ashamed that I had allowed food to become my everything – frightened I would die because of it. Drastic times called for drastic measures... Today, I’m bound and determined to live a better, healthier, active lifestyle. I realize I’m no longer a passenger in my life, I’m the driver. I’m overcoming my inhibitions and I’m slowly but surely saying farewell to my old childhood nemesis, obesity. For once and for all, Farewell Fatso!