It's my own fault!

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.

- Albert Ellis

I've always believed this, yet allowed myself to be overweight. My big philosophy is that we make our own happiness or unhappiness. If something seems to be beyond my control, I simply accept it. I can see that by doing that, I accepted my weight as inevitable and didn't allow myself to see that by doing so I was accepting bad knees, foot problems, and shoulder and elbow problems, not to mention a somewhat less than fullfilling lifestyle.

By deciding years ago that diets were causing my weight gain (every time a diet failed, I gained twice as much as I lost) I could put diets out of the picture and didn't see the progressive damage I was doing to my body. Now that I've lost 30 pounds, I'm more active, and getting outside enjoying nature and the new but enjoyable feeling of tired muscles.

It's my fault I am this way (NOT McDonalds or Reeses) and it will be my own fault when I lose another 30 pounds and am able to hike the "real" hikes.