By Mari Kinney, 15, Los Angeles High School

“When the word was out that I was going to write an article for LA Youth about exercise and fitness, eyes rolled and mouths dropped in my class. Since I’m not exactly thin, a few individuals were shocked that I’m writing an article about weight loss—but I reminded them of the old me and the new 20-pounds-lighter me.
After listening to rude comments, I got fed up. People said I would look so pretty if I lost weight, or I would look so much better if I didn’t dress so masculine. They said my pretty face was hidden by so much weight. Guys would taunt me, girls would laugh. It got to the point where something had to be done.

I had to eliminate the word ‘diet’
Reading has always been a number one interest of mine, so I decided to read up on diet and nutrition. There are probably 5 million diets out there and none of them seem to fit me. There are shakes, pills, fasting, 20 minutes of cardio, 20 minutes of aerobics—it takes too much time. I’m tall and muscular and I didn’t want to achieve more muscle mass, but lose the excess fat. After all the reading and searching I found one thing that really worked—to eliminate the word diet.
The first thing I did was forget the scale and break out the measuring tape. I had to start cutting out the fat in the meals I ate (see the chart that compares my old and new eating habits) and get more exercise. I didn’t have the time that some of the exercise programs demanded out of me, so I changed buses and started to walk up a hill to school instead of the bus dropping me off in front of school.
I knew the key thing was to start moving. After a week of doing this, I noticed that it was easier to do a lot of things without losing my breath.
I started to walk more and participate in my physical education class instead of sitting down. I played outside more often and in no time I noticed my weight loss, and so did others, which was the best thing of all.”