“Ring!..ring!!...ring!!!...”
That was the blaring sound of my alarm. I rolled in bed unceremoniously for about 5mins after the sound of my alarm. Dilly dallying about my next move, I stood up and walked straight to the bathroom. Being the queen of procrastination I said to myself, yet again “I’ll start tomorrow today’s gone already”.
My name is Fat (Fatima in full), and I am a girl who lives in Nigeria. Where I reside, the need for staying fit is no need at all as people go on about their lives sedentarily. Having no gym around also festered my almost lack of desire to engage in any act of exercise.
Most times, while surfing through the internet at work, I came across girls and women who took physical fitness serious. They looked good. I promised myself to start doing same every morning by 5:00am, therefore the alarm bell earlier mentioned. I never did.
Turning point
One fateful day, I walked into a drugstore. I usually frequent the store because of its closeness to my house and a friend of mine that worked there. He beamed brightly at me as usual, but this time, in an assessive way. He pulled me closer and whispered “you are seriously adding weight o!…how about we calculate your BMI (body mass index)?”. I hesitated a little but agreed anyway.
My BMI was 28.5. He explained to me that I was slightly overweight and that I should lose some weight for health reasons.
I considered it for a long time when I got home and decided to start keeping fit by working out at home. Now, making the decision was one thing and actually doing it was a very different thing altogether. I browsed out a lot of exercises and decided on which one I could do.
I started with 15mins every day. First off I took 5mins to walk round the yard, then the remaining 10mins I do lunges, squats, pushups and the likes of them. It wasn’t an easy feat. At all. I felt like dying the first day I tried it. No jokes. The next few days my muscles were about to give way to tears, they ached badly but I was determined to lose some pounds. And I did.
I increased the time for the workout and even bought a dumbbell. I tried doing 25mins then 30min then 40mins every day. Like I said before, it wasn’t easy but sheer determination drove me on. I cut down on the amount of fatty foods I consumed daily and concentrated more on vegies.
After some months, I went back to my friend and we did another BMI and voila! I was no longer slightly overweight, but normal. That didn’t make me stop there. I continued the exercise till date. I also noticed my menstrual pains were reduced greatly, I had the energy to perform some certain tasks, one that I couldn’t do before and my endurance level to some stress increased.
My clothes looked better on me as my figure became more pronounced. I gained more confidence with whatever I wore.
Staying fit has a lot of perks and I would advise you to start today and stop procrastinating as I once did.
Now I look kinda petite, though, my friends still call me Fat, Fat for Fatima!