Although I was never a thin girl, I was always fit because I played basketball from the 5th grade right through college. But after graduation, I got married and gave up playing basketball. Then I started eating too much. In 10 years, my weight increased from 175 to 245 pounds. What was even worse, my son picked up a bad eating habit. As a four-year-old boy, he liked having French fries because he often saw me put those things into my mouth.
I read an article in my husband‟s health magazine. It said that being too fat can shorten a person‟s life by five to ten years. That was scary. I didn‟t want to leave my son because of my poor eating habits. After that, every time I wanted to have French fries, I would think that I could be here a little bit longer if I just ate better.
One of my friends told me that an organization was offering a free course to help people lose weight, so I decided to join it. The teacher gave each type of food a certain number of calories, and how many calories we needed to eat a day. After I came home from the first class, I calculated (计算) the calories of food in my meal. If I wanted, I could have pizza every night. But when I learned that one piece had a lot of calories, I decided not to eat as many pieces as I wanted.
Finally, I succeeded in losing 50 pounds. In February, 2012, I was on the cover of a health magazine. And my husband always told other people that I looked better than ever.