Like most individuals who are over size 10 and not happy about it, I struggled with weight loss for most of my life. Nothing I tried to lose weight ever seemed to work for me. When I finally achieved weight loss success, I realized that no matter what pill, program, or diet you try, weight loss success comes down to your personality, lifestyle and deciding what you can live with.

I've been, as they say, full-figured for my entire life. Of course there is nothing wrong with that but I always wanted to look just a little better, especially since it's no fun being a size sixteen teenager being relentlessly teased by your peers. My years as a full-figured teen were very hard and I think this experience was probably the beginning of my search for my weight loss magic cure.

I went the usual route when trying to lose weight and started with store bought weight loss products. I began by trying SlimFast. The problem with this was not so much the product but the fact that I couldn't discipline myself to stick with a shake for breakfast, shake for lunch, etc. Of course, eating tiny portions of food didn't work and weight loss pills just didn't seem to suit me. Weight loss pills didn't seem to get me any results and if I tried to eat very little, I would always end up gorging myself with food because I was so hungry.

Before my wedding day, I successfully lost forty pounds by going on the Atkins diet. The Atkins diet worked very well for me but after five years of marriage and a medical problem I saw a photo of myself and was shocked. I didn't recognize myself anymore. I was larger than I had ever been before. Right then and there I knew I had to do something.

After years of yo-yo dieting, I had to stop and think about how I could be successful at losing weight and how I could be healthy.

I knew I couldn't achieve weight loss success on any diet where I couldn't eat normally. From experience I already knew that I would repeatedly fall off the wagon. I did attempt to join a gym and joined two different ones at different times. This experience didn't work for me either. I lost my motivation to go to the gym because at some you are surrounded with clients that in my opinion don't have a serious weight problem. I also found that if the gym did cater to those with more than thirty pounds to lose, they don't really give the necessary push you may need to help you really lose weight.

Knowing my history with weight loss, I realized why I had very little or no success when it came to losing weight. I realized what I was missing. Fun. For me to be successful, I needed to enjoy the weight loss process. I also realized something equally important. Weight loss will always fail if you do it for any other reason than for yourself.

Once I came to that realization, I started looking for some fun ways to lose weight. I am back to something that I had loved for years, dancing. I found that dancing burns just as many calories as any other exercise and it was fun! I found a dance studio that offered salsa lessons and I began taking classes.

I started off with one salsa class and ended up taking several classes a week. After a few months of dancing, I had lost a significant amount of weight. Not only had the dance classes help me to lose weight but the dance studio began offering Zumba classes. Zumba is aerobics to Latin music and since I was already taking salsa classes, I began taking Zumba. After joining Zumba, I shed even more pounds and shed them even faster. After eight months of salsa dancing and Zumba classes, I lost over thirty pounds. Now thirty pounds later and two sizes smaller, I feel better, am a lot healthier, and I have a bright grin on my face whenever I look in the mirror. Most importantly I am very proud of myself for accomplishing my weight loss goal.

I still have some weight loss goals to meet but by finding an exercise routine that was fun, effective and fit my personality I have achieved a success that has eluded me for so long.

Source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2080637/dance_your_way_to_fitne...