Deliberate and Passive Choices

I'm almost 58 years old, and just when I think I've just about heard it all, I learn all over again that things are sadder and more strange than I can even imagine.  The latest news story that has me shaking my head all over again was an article I read yesterday.  There is a woman in New Jersey who currently weighs 602 pounds and is on a very strict diet to gain weight, as her goal is to weigh 1,000 pounds.

This woman has two small children and a boyfriend and she wants to be the world's heaviest woman.   She believes that she has a right to eat what she wants and weigh what she wants.  She consumes in excess of 12,000 calories a day and tries to remain as inactive as possible to help her gain as much weight as quickly as she possibly can.  Even though she is only 42, she needs a motorized scooter to get around because she can only walk 200 feet at a time.  She is also at risk for a multitude of health issues

I don't begin to understand what is going on (or not going on . . . ) inside of her head, but this is someone clearly headed for disaster.  Whether or not she ends up getting the record she wants, she is heading towards an early death. 

It's easy to see the folly of someone at this level of extreme behavior, but before we get too busy shaking our heads in wonder at her, it would be wise to take a look at ourselves.  Before starting on Take Shape for Life/Medifast, many of us were heading towards disaster with a fork tightly clenched in our hand.  We might not have been as overt in our efforts as this woman, and it might have taken longer for our health to deteriorate, but we were heading there nevertheless. Obesity is directly linked to multiple health issues and whether or not we were dealing with any of these health issues when we started on this program, if we started this program with a BMI over 25, and particularly if our starting BMI was over 30 (my starting BMI was 42.6), our health was at risk.

The choices we make every day determine the direction we're headed. If we aren't choosing to lose weight and improve our health, we are choosing the opposite.  It may be a passive choice - certainly not the in-your-face choice this New Jersey woman is making - but it's still a choice with its own set of consequences.

We have in our hands the tools we need to get to a healthy weight and stay there.  We have in our hands the tools we need to be as healthy as we can possibly be.  All we have to do is choose to use them.  Choose wisely :-)