The Journey to Slim world... a destination or drive through

hmmm where do I begin, I would say this is one of the biggest struggles most people have, weight gain and coupled with the fact that the world has created the ideal man and ideal woman idea, its getting so hard just to be yourself. am still at loss of words where to start! well let me start with my own struggle with going up and down the scales.
i have been a size 14 or so most of my life and i have been very comfortable with that, i actually never really paid attention to it until i started wearing a size sixteen, i think that was when the alarm bells started ringing and it just went down hill after that. i have tried different diets, the G.I diet, the eat all you want but under a certain number of calories diet, the don't eat after 7 o'clock diet, and the i will start my diet tomorrow diet plan lol which is always bound to fail lol. We all need that ounce of determination, when there is a goal to be achieved but the main problem is the stumbling blocks that come along the way to hinder, like the chocolate bar hiding at the most convenient place when you are you weakest.  Will we rise up to the challenge or break under the heavy weight? I have found I keep failing to achieve my desire goal alone unless I have someone keeping a watchful eye over my diet plans.

 Now I am not giving excuses for being over-weight or piling on the pounds but serious the media has got their fair share of blame in all these. if we put out of our minds the perfect figure eight, model like girls we see in magazines and on tv ads and movies, then I think we might have more realistic goals. How about first of all trying to be healthy and eat right, sleep well and have a good amount of exercise. Drink a lot of water, fruit teas( the list is endless, I have a fond love for these), plenty fruit and vegetables and all the regular stuffs. I think the less we focus on I must look like this to be happy the better for us all as men and women.
Another concern is how much importance we put on what tastes good to our mouths and creates a  gymnasium of activities on our palate than what actually is good for our bodies. I kind of shudder a bit understanding some of the side effects to some of the methods of slimming. I see many people on so called low fat but high in sugar or fat free and full of sweeteners  Being honest I am a bit weary of the effects that sweeteners have on the body.

Another struggle with losing weight especially if you are from another culture other than western culture, it can be a bit hard trying to adapt your diet to suit all the dieting needs mentioned in whatever method you are using. Because most of the foods listed there you might not be used to them. I keep wondering why there aren't any African,Asian etc diet books unless I have not come by them yet. Maybe I should write one lol. I don't know if anyone finds that starting a diet can actually be quite expensive. I remember starting one particular diet and after I had gone to the supermarket and bought all I needed and started the diet, I was struggling to reuse the food because by the time day 8 came most of the stuff where out of date or getting bad. I just found it best to just pick out certain recipes and repeat them , it might be a bit boring but for a couple of days that should be al-right. 

Our natural build also matters, are you tall and small boned or big boned, short etc . Also instead of panicking when you put on weight, it helps realising that there is a range of weight you could be depending on your height that could be healthy for you.

Exercise is another thing that I really struggled with. Finding the right regime and also right exercise, I tried jogging a couple of times with friends, only discovered I only got light head and on one occasion of exercise had a nasty accident, I looked like I was in a fight! I eventually settled for power walking and jogging in between. Then someone on this diet I was on told me exercise does not actually help you lose weight! It is actually what you eat and exercise only helps you tone muscles and improves your fitness. Obviously I was kind of hooked on that but thinking of it that way as an escape route not to exercise doesn't really help. I am quite hopeful that I would get to a more healthy weight each day. I think that's the trick really, healthy choices every day eventually will count for an over all healthy life style.