Never Give Up! Mike’s Success Story
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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.
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
