A year ago when I lost ten pounds, the only reason I lost the weight was to look good for my husband. If you are losing weight for the sake of another person and not for your own good, you might unwittingly become resentful. Thankfully I nipped it in the bud, but I saw it coming. I'm telling you my story as a warning, so that it doesn't happen to you.

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When I was trying to lose ten pounds, I knew that as soon as the summer was over, our crazy schedule in the fall would prevent me from having time to exercise. This was back when my husband and I were leaders at Cub Scouts, involved in sports for each of our three sons, Bible study, guitar lessons, etc. My husband had deacon training meetings on top of it. Every weekday we had two activities back to back in the evenings, sometimes…

As soon as I came back from my romantic weekend getaway, I wanted to make a note to myself of why exercising was important. After all, my dislike for exercise usually outweighs the technical benefits. As long as I'm still skinny, who cares about exercise? I knew this would be my attitude. So as a reminder to myself, I wrote a list of all the benefits of exercise for me:

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My whole life I've been skinny as a rail. Even after giving birth to four babies, each time I lost all the baby fat within about six months. It wasn't until I turned 39 that I suddenly gained ten pounds. What you might not realize is that skinny people are out of shape, too, if they are not exercising. When I ran up a flight of stairs, my heart felt squished.

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I know you'll all hate me if I tell you this, but I've always been skinny as a rail and didn't have a…