My name is Mike Watson. I was born on April 25, 1975 in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was born with an umbilical cord around my neck…a breach baby. I started talking and then quit until I was three years old.
My favorite foods are macaroni and cheese, pizza, chicken, hamburgers, and French fries just to name a few. I drank a lot of Coke growing up. I remember jumping up and down on playpens until they break, that’s because I was getting bigger. The bigger I got, the less active I became.
When I was 27 years old, I weigh 263 pounds, before moving to Florida, at a Day Care program. I was eating fish sticks and hamburgers at that time. I walked from Day Care to a local fast food chicken restaurant and ate fried chicken, biscuits, macaroni and cheese and soda. I ate there about five days a week. I was cramming food in and ate very fast.
Sadly, my father died in 2002 of emphysema. He was a heavy smoker, and so was my mom until she quit cold turkey. My sister Robin visited our old house shortly after my dad died and realized that mom and I weren’t taking care of ourselves very well. Robin had no choice but to move me and my mom to Florida. Robin put me on the Atkins Diet because I consumed too many carbs. I cut out all the carbs and started walking half a block, around the neighborhood, until it increased my walking routine to three miles a day (about an hour and 15 minutes). Around 2005, my weight started to go down to 160 pounds and trying to maintain my weight. However, to this day, I still crave for soda, bread, pizza, chicken fingers and French fries, but I’m still trying to control my cravings by cutting out some soda and fried foods.
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My advice to people who are overweight:
- Never give up.
- Stick to a diet that limits what your weakness is.
- Walk and exercise.
- Eat slowly and take smaller bites.
Believe me, it’s not really that easy. Unfortunately, I continue to have a problem taking my own advice, but someday I’ll thank myself for it.
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This post originally appeared on our January/February 2011 Magazine [10]