Hearing my parents from the bedroom next to mine, I knew instantly what they were talking about. Their voices seemed calm, yet they were talking about moving. I was relieved to learn it was nothing serious like a medical or financial problem. Moving is nothing more than a way of life to me and my family. It’s an obstacle I just have to deal with. Most kids only move once, possibly twice but for me and my siblings it’s a completely different story. I was born in the Czech Republic, moved to California, then Tennessee, Washington State, Ohio and finally Illinois. Making friends hasn’t been a problem for me, though, one issue abruptly came up. As a child, my eating habits consisted of everything that wasn’t green. I was quick to eat ice cream before dinner, and eat that one oreo in my lunchable and nothing else. For some kids, when you’re young, gaining weight isn’t a problem. A kid will eat pastries and fried food but nothing else. To them, vegetables and fruits are toxic. I entered that dangerous stage. I only craved for foods that would only harm my body. And as a result, I became the fat kid in my fourth grade class.

When I first moved to Illinois, I was lucky everyone was accepting of me being overweight. Because my classmates didn’t insult me, I accepted the way I was. Back when I was a kid, everyone else’s opinion controlled me. I didn’t care how I felt about myself, I only cared what other’s opinions were. This led me to doubt myself because, deep down, I knew what I was doing was wrong. Filling up my body with snack food only created an unhealthy lifestyle. The cafeteria in my school didn’t help me either. The lunch ladies served pizza, crispy chicken, cheeseburgers, french fries, and of course two to three containers of chicken caeser salad that nobody touched. At lunch, a kid would either bring food from home or they would eat the unearthly sludge the lunch ladies call meat. I didn’t mind so much back then, because the majority of the students ate the cafeteria food.

A week passes since I moved to Illinois and my mom took me out of school for a doctor’s appointment. “What’s it for?” I asked her. “Just a regular check up.” she replied with a smile. I stare out the window of the car knowing my mom lied to me. It was clear to me she was taking me into the doctor’s because of my weight. As we wait in the office, a nurse calls me back and I walk down the long hallways. It felt like forever since I arrived into the Doctor’s room because the thoughts of someone calling me overweight were just hammering my head. “I know the doctor will make fun of me.” I kept thinking to myself. The nurse sat me down and took me through the regular routine. She listened to my heart beat, bumped my knees in check for normal reflexes, scaled my height but then came the weight scale. I stepped on it very slowly and looked down so I didn’t see the nurse’s face. “Alright.” she said “You can get off now.” I drop from the scale to await for the doctor. The funny thing is, I didn’t even check what my weight was. The nurse never brought it up either. I stared at the floor imaging myself somewhere else. “Hello.” the doctor said with a grin on his face. “Hi, I’m Charlie.” I said shaking his cold wrinkly hands. He sat down and talked about my test results. “You seem to be healthy, but I’ve noticed you’ve gained a little weight since you were in the third grade.” He said as he looked at my old results from last year. I nodded. “Well son, it’s not that big of a deal. Some kids go through this phase, and the only way to stop it is by exercising and eating healthy.” “That’s it?” I thought to myself. “No lecture, no insults, no nothing? Just a health tip?” I look up, “Thanks, I’ll get right to it.” The next day I look up work out teachers and listen to what they had to say before they demonstrated their routines. All of them basically said the same thing what my doctor said, and it hit me.

I’m not stopping myself from choosing a healthy lifestyle because of the people around me, I’m stopping myself because I’m too lazy exercise. My mindset completely changed and as I grew older I’ve wanted to gain muscle as opposed to losing weight after I left my fat stage. While watching videos online, I came across a man, who used to be a Drill Sergeant, on youtube named John Burk. The fact that this man was in the military caught my eye because his old title shined like a beacon. Drill Sergeants are known to be aggressive, but in a good way. They say what’s on their mind and aren’t afraid to hurt you physically and mentally. They are the givers of “tough love” and won’t stop until you become a better person. I didn’t hesitate to click on John’s video. In his video, John called fat people “repulsive” and “lazy”. In my opinion, I didn’t think he was going too far. I’ve always look down at “fat pride”, even as an overweight child. To me, the fat pride activists are people who want to exploit their bad habit in order to not exercise. This bad habit is mainly laziness and constant blaming. Fat pride activists also try to change society because of their poor lifestyle. For example, because men don’t find these women attractive, the overweight models expose their bodies and force men to find them attractive. These people are crazy to me, and their passion to force their habits on others gave me another reason to lose the weight. John Burk says what a lot of people think but do not say. John also noted that there are people who are overweight due to diseases and they’re the only ones who get an excuse but for those who choose to eat in an unhealthy way are slothful. And as a past fat child, I agree with him. The only way I lost the weight was from pushing myself to exercise and to eat healthy food. And because of that, I feel like a better person.

After I gained self confidence, I didn’t care what others thought. John Burk was like the trainers online, after they gave their speeches about eating healthy and exercising, they became different people. Their word choices shocked me but I knew it was true. And because of that, I became motivated to lose weight and later successfully accomplish that goal. Taking pride in my old unhealthy lifestyle only dampered my confidence and I gained more weight but after hearing the truth and accepting reality, I broke the obstacles in life and took in pride into something I worked hard for. To this day, losing all the weight I carried through my chubby childhood and avoiding obesity has been the greatest achievement I’ve ever accomplished.