My hearts was beating very fast when I saw her. It was tied in qualm and nebulous world, was it friendship? Affection? Or perhaps something called love. The way she spoke depicted her eloquence, she owned the gift of the gab. Judging from her appearance, I could say she was a prissy girl. I had never seen surly expression on her yellow-glow face, there were all smirks and grins which beautify her face. Her blue-black eyes always glistened every time sunshine greets her, showing how stoical she was to endure pains and hardships.
I burrowed in my heart, searching for a dim light of love. Whenever I felt ready to confess my love, I was enervated by the fact that she was too perfect for a simple man like me. I was just a boy from the next door, living a normal life. In retrospect, seeing her smile was more than enough to soothe my torments.
It was a dreary and dull day, she was talking with a boy who used to be one of her arch-enemies and maybe he was the only one. Envy once again knocked the door of my heart. Even I did not dare to voice out my feelings, it did not mean that I had given up. I could still put a tiny hope on a proverb, “to get love, one must give love”. Abruptly, Pang! The boy crushed a chair, I dashed towards her as if I was the Prince Charming whose princess was in danger. Impudently, the boy shouted, “Get away!”.Standing still there, oblivious to the fact that I was unarmed.Strenuously, he threw the chair towards me.
Bloods streaming profusely through my right arm. I was too innocent to fight back but she was behind me, trembling in fear. Agilely, I punched him. He felt. Being a sensible one, she called disciplinary teacher. “Why are you crying? It’s over”,I laughed. I was a man devoid of humour but she smiled and it was worthier than any medicines. The irreconcilable fight ended.
Every single word voiced by her mouth was pearls that shining in amidst of despair. I still bear in mind, it was a rip-roaring day. I had failed my test while everybody aced it with flying colours. My friends were all inveighing me, despising me and even making fun of me. None of them tried to courage me except a girl, it was her. I still remembered every single words she uttered. “As long as you had given your very best, you should not afraid of the results”, for those words I have been living till today.
It seemed like the man did not learnt proper lessons from our first encounter. This time it was between me and him. We were circled by a group of students. It was like fighting in a cell, some students just ignored us, perhaps the adage was right, “ignorance is a bliss”. Help was nowhere in my sight. The tense of atmosphere started to build up. The dark cloud gathered. My sweats flowing like a river. The ‘spectators’ screamed joyfully, he rushed towards me. Miraculously, I finished him withjust a kick at his stomach. Never in my mind, my one year-karate-experiences could be an useful weapon.
The irksome crowd did not disassemble, they were expecting more violent and blood. I was beaten harshly by five people. I came back home with blue and black, bruises all over my body. I had never told her the incident, I did not want to see her tears again. Her tears was more precious than my pains.
Always keeping in my wits, it was a bloodcurdling incident. We were on the way to the grocery shop. It was my fault, I suggested her to use a bypath between two magnificent buildings. We walked through it. Out of the blue, we saw two men,they were blocking our way: In front and behind.I could see her hands shivering in fear, I took a sharp look on them as the villains were approaching us. Anxiously, he ran towards me and this time I was not sure that I could beat such burly men. Grabbing a club from the dustbin, I smashed his head as if I was smashing a melon, the man fainted. At this juncture, it was one versus one. A fair and square match at last, at least I thought so.
Then, the other guy showed his weapon, a knife. She was too weak to run. The guy tried to punch me, I dodged the man’s attack and shove him to the ground. Mercilessly, I hit his head with the club. “Let’s go”, I shouted to her.I thought the man was unconscious. To my astonishment, the man leaped and stabbed her on the chest, she was protecting me. Bloods oozing from her chest, with all the might I kicked the man’s head.
He died but the triumph was no avail.Today, She is too far from me now, I can only feel her existence in my heart. Every day is another day of ordeal to be finished, I could only cry remorsefully. Every single moment we shared was priceless treasures for me, her spirit still alive inside me. She will always be with me, forever.



( 875 words)

As a child there was something different about me. I was bright, funny and healthy, so why did other people treat me with such contempt. I was suffering from a kind of prejudice that is still prevalent today. I was fat. With this prejudice came several assumptions. Because I was fat I was obviously lazy. Because I was fat I was obviously stupid. Because I was fat I smelt, I was unfashionable, I didn't deserve friends.

For reasons far beyond the scope of this tale, family life was difficult for me as a child, so I sought solace in the only thing that made me happy. That thing was food. So from a very young age I was caught in a trap. My weight made me depressed, so I ate to take away those feelings of sorrow. In turn, the food made me put on weight. By the time I was eight I was in adult clothing. It was a little long in the leg maybe, but the waist fitted like a dream.

As the years went by, the few people I felt I could call friends drifted away and I became a victim of bullying at school. I was lucky that there was never anything physical, but the name calling was awful. Even stares in the playground became unbearable. The school seemed to take the attitude that it was my fault. If I lost weight all the bullying would stop. They were probably right, but I couldn't find the heart to lose weight and couldn't stand another minute at that school. At the age of 14 I dropped out and became a virtual recluse, sometimes even refusing to leave my room, let alone my house.

My teenage years passed me by. As my peers were out in pubs and clubs, getting jobs and finding girlfriends, I stayed in my room. My doctor showed terrible concern for me, finally advising that my weight was likely to kill me and my quality of life prior to this was to be severely reduced. All this was water off a ducks back - I had no quality of life so perhaps if I did nothing and let the inevitable happen I would feel no more pain.

But there was a small part of me that wanted my life back. My soul had been buried under folds of fat and was screaming to be revealed. I took a look in the mirror. I was soon to be 21 years old. I weighed over 400 pounds. I was unqualified, unemployed, penniless and without a friend in the world. I wore rags tied up with string because at this time there were no specialist shops to deal with 'large physiques'. There had to be more to life than this! I made the decision that I was going to lose weight.

For my 21st birthday I received a set of cheap plastic dumbbells and I set off to the library to find out information on how my body worked. If I could figure out how my body had become this terrible mess, perhaps I could reverse the process.

I reduced the calories in my diet and tried to cut out as much fat as I could. I began to go walking - just a couple of hundred yards at first because I became very breathless and my legs became sore as the layers of fat rubbed together. But after a few weeks the distance began to increase. After a short time the scales (two sets, because one set wouldn't hold my weight!) began to show a loss of weight.

This was the first time in my life that my weight hadn't actually gone up! This gave me tremendous motivation to carry on. Pound after pound the weight slipped away, and after two years I had finally hit my target weight. I had lost about 250 pounds. But I couldn't get back my childhood. I was still unqualified, unemployed and without friends. The difference now was that I had the confidence to do something about it. I had found something I was good at, I just had to find a way to take that forward. I approached a local charitable trust that was impressed by my achievement and they provided me with a grant to become a qualified fitness instructor.

I had grown to love exercise and the money I made I ploughed back into my business so I could learn more exercise techniques.

This was over ten years ago, and I have bucked the trend of yo-yo dieting. I am still slim and run my own personal training business and have a completely different life full of satisfaction and fulfilment. I also run the Overweight and Obesity Organization, a non-profit organization that sets out to give help, advice and support to those who are now in a similar position to that which I was in over a decade ago. I don't wish the feelings I had in my youth upon anyone, and this is my way of trying to help.

(843 words)