Lose weight now. Are you asking me how?

I've been obsessed with weight-loss for over 4 years now. Idly, I'd type 'Weight-loss from the face, losing weight from the butts, reducing arm fat, how to tone my legs better' into the Google search bar. It would open up a list of videos, articles, blogger tips, ORDER NOW pop-up windows about some pills that always had a Before-After corner where both the pictures belonged to different people. Anyway, I was obsessed only with the idea of weight-loss online. Once the laptop was turned off, I'd go back into the world of fat, sugar, carbohydrates and the calories would come running in to to hug me.

My history with fat:
Fat and I go back a long time in history; 13.07.88, the day I was born, to be precise. I was born fat. When I went to play school I weighed 3 kgs heavier than the tiny kids and was taller by an inch. Most of my grand parents' friends would visit us every month and ask me the same question: "You've grown so tall and heavy, which class are you in now?" I'd give them the same reply every month. My grand father's friend once asked me: "Which course have you taken up in college?" "College?!" My eyes popped out at that thought. Didn't I tell  him last month that I was in class 9? "Uncle, I'm only in class 9," I smiled and served him a glass of water politely. "Oh, in that case you must lose some weight beta! You look older for your age." I could have either thrown water at his face and asked him to leave or just do something about my weight. Honestly, I did nothing of the two.

There was a time when girls in my class weighed 24 kgs and I weighed 27 kgs, gradually they put on weight and weighed 42 kgs. How could I be left behind, I went on to weigh 72 kgs. And probably 4 inches taller than the rest of them. I reached an all-time high of 80 in class 12. But it was baby fat and it would go, most of my relatives would tell me, okay the only relative who said that to me was my mother.

When I entered college, I stayed in a hostel and learnt how I had to be attractive to make more friends. I'll tell you about how I lost 13 kgs in 8 months without ever going to the gym:

• My daily diet was the watery daal for lunch and the African continent-shaped rotis. It was the first time I was away from home, so I tried to save money by not buying chips/chocolates/biscuits. Dinner was the same. 
• My room was on the 4th floor, so I'd climb stairs at least thrice daily.
• I walked all the way from my PG to my college which was about a kilometer away from my PG. I'd also walk back home from there.
• There weren't washing machines, there was no mommy to wash my clothes. Every weekend, 2 hours were spent in a battle between dirt on my clothes vs Surf and my hands. I'd be dead tired by the end of that exercise.

One day, I noticed that the space between my jeans and my waist was enough to carry two people my size. Everyday people would ask me how I was losing weight, sadly, I didn't realise what I was doing to lose weight! I'd shrug my shoulders and they thought I was hiding my secret diet from them. Sigh.

It has been 3 years since college and I haven't gained half-a-kilo since then, but I haven't lost weight either despite putting in a lot of effort. I keep reading articles about Yoga, gymming, the correct exercises to lose weight from specific parts of my body, acu-pressure, liposuction, ayurvedic/homeopathic/unani medicines. I've read them all, tried them all and haven't lost more than 10 grams.

 What I haven't done is what I did back in college - Junk food replaced the watery daal/rotis, no climbing stairs, washing clothes only in the machine, but I walk, and I walk a lot, which is why I'm stuck at where I stopped. While writing this down, I realised what works for me and what doesn't. The four bullet points work; Google, although very supportive throughout my obsession, didn't quite work in my favour!