Ten Low-Calorie Success Stories
In This Chapter
� Checking out inspiring stories
� Gathering helpful hints
The men and women who contributed the “before and after” stories in this chapter have all battled the bulge. Some have lost weight for the first time in their lives, while others have traveled this road several times finally figuring out that cutting calories and getting more exercise is the key to losing weight. Read their stories as inspirational advice on how you too can begin to control your weight instead of letting your weight control you.
Finally Fitting into My Genes
My unique relationship with food started at a young age. In my family, food was the center of all celebrations, the healing of all wounds, and, before I knew it, one of my best friends. My family was nothing but loving to me, but they never realized that their own food habits might have a negative effect on me in the long run. A good grade got me an ice cream cone; a bad grade got me the same. My mother would bring me bags of potato chips to eat in bed and then at other times scold me for eating snacks that were “meant for my brother.” I was confused. Unfortunately, she was too. She could see bad food patterns developing, but she didn’t know what to do because she and my father were both struggling with their own weight problems.
I was always a social kid and had a large circle of friends and endless activi- ties to keep me busy. But even then, nothing satisfied me the way food did. It was around the time I turned 8 that I can remember the horror of being called “fatty” or “big butt.” I would go home in tears, only to be comforted by cookies. Eating sweets made me feel better. I didn’t know any other way.
One vivid memory from adolescence is that of not being able to pull my cheerleading skirt up over my thighs. My mother had one custom-made for me, but the other girls just pointed out that mine was different. I went home in tears. At this point, my mother saw what my weight was doing to me and because she’d struggled with it her entire life, attempted to help me in the only way she knew how, by introducing me to fad diets. We ate grapefruits three times a day. We cut out carbohydrates. We took pills that did unthink- able things to our bowels. We joined a weight-loss program and celebrated the move by going out for ice cream sundaes! None of it taught me anything about my behaviors or how I let my emotions dictate what I would eat.
By the time I got to college, my weight had ballooned to 225 pounds. Although people always tried to tell me I “carried my weight well,” 5-feet-7 isn’t tall enough to carry 225 pounds. I had let myself go, I knew it, and that’s when I became completely introverted. I went to class, went home, and slept as much as I could. I refused to face the outside world. Around the same time, my mother made the decision to undergo gastric bypass surgery. Not only was the surgery a success in helping her lose more than 100 pounds, but it also somehow changed her psychological approach to food. My one-time food buddy had turned into a normal eater! I didn’t quite know how to handle it. I felt very alone and that’s when I hit rock bottom. I knew that if I didn’t put a stop to my overeating, it would be the end of me in more ways than one.
As a result, I joined a weight-loss program. It wasn’t the first time I’d joined, but I made a promise to myself it would be the last. It took a lot of patience and it was never easy. It took two years for 60 pounds to come off. Along the way there have been bumps in the road and setbacks I hadn’t anticipated. I went off the program at times. Some weeks I skipped meetings. But I never quit. I knew I couldn’t turn back. I would never again go back to being the miserable person I was at 225 pounds.
These days, I don’t restrict what I eat. If I want a candy bar, I have one. I may choose a smaller one, or one with fewer calories or less fat, but I won’t tell myself “I can’t have this” because that type of deprivation only leads to trouble. I’m still working to take off another 30 pounds, which will get me to my weight goal, but I’ve decided not to set a date for that goal. I take my food plan one day at a time, and when I have extra stress in my life, I take it one meal at a time. I draw on all the support I can, including friends, program meetings, published literature, and online research.
At this point, I accept that focusing on weight control will always be part of my life. I know at times I may put on a few pounds, even while I’m still trying to lose. I know I’ll work them off because I’m determined never to go back to the person I was before. I just won’t let it happen. Being that person wasn’t much fun, so I’m determined to stick to the happier “new” me. — Amanda K.
Eating Small Portions All the Time
I never gained the infamous “freshman 15” when I first went to college. It was my junior year that did me in. French was one of my majors, so I decided to take an opportunity to live in France for six months that year. I weighed about 125 pounds before I left, and thanks to a diet that included a few too many freshly baked baguettes and pain au chocolat, came back tipping the scales at 145. Within a few months, I got my weight back down to 125 just by eating less food.
A couple of years later, as a graduation present to myself, I went back to France for another extended stay. I brought those same 20 extra pounds back home to the States with me six months later. Again, I simply started watching how much I ate. I wasn’t going to deprive myself of the types of foods I’d come to love, so I simply ate less of them. I lost the weight again and have kept it off for 20 years.
I use the same strategy to maintain weight as I did to lose it. Either I share a high-calorie dish or yummy dessert, or I simply take two or three bites and leave the rest. I don’t see it as a loss of money; I see it as a loss of excess calories. I’m spending the same amount of money, regardless of how much I eat.
— Lori T.
Consuming Fewer Calories and Adding More Workouts
For the past 25 years, I’ve been battling the weight war, always struggling with an extra 10 or 15 pounds. I have tried almost every diet available and purchased every diet “solution” advertised — pills, lotions, teas, fad foods, you name it — in hope of shedding those unwanted pounds. I even tried giving up all forms of chocolate (my favorite food group), but that was an unacceptable and, in the end, unsuccessful strategy. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered the only thing that really works and of course it’s something I’ve known deep down for a long time.
After all these years of reading health magazines and newspaper articles about the importance of exercise and good nutrition, it finally sunk in. If you want to lose weight the right and safe way, the only way is by becoming aware of how many calories you consume and, if necessary, cutting back and/or burning off any excess with a good workout. With the help of an article I found in a fitness magazine, I calculated the number of calories I needed to consume each day to maintain my weight. From there I figured out how many calories I should consume to shed a few pounds. I started counting calories every day, factored in how many calories I worked off at the gym, and lost weight.
I still count calories, and if I overindulge one day, I take those calories away from another day during the week. I weigh myself only once a week. Most importantly, I no longer worry or feel guilty when I eat more than I should because I know the formula for getting myself back on track. — Stacey J.
Knowing What Works and Making Time for It
I think I overeat for three reasons: I love food, I’m an anxious person and eating calms me down, and if I don’t set a goal or have a strong reason for losing weight, I find it hard to restrain myself. Over the past 30 years, I’ve lost and regained the same 20 to 40 pounds, and then some. At 6-foot-1, I would be pretty happy if I could maintain my weight around 200 pounds, as long as a lot of that was muscle.
About 15 years ago, just before my wedding, I decided it was time to lose weight again. I went from 251 pounds to 187 pounds in eight months, with the help of a commercial weight-loss program and a rigorous exercise routine. About five years ago, I was back up to 245 pounds, so I rejoined the program, added weight training to my exercise routine, and was down to 210 six months later.
The combination of regular workouts and a structured diet plan works for me every time I stick to them, and stops working when I slack off. These days, I’m back up to 230 pounds, but I finally see the pattern and I know what I have to do. I’m getting back into it and I trust that I’ll lose the weight again, but the going is slow because I now have an infant son who needs my attention and takes up all of my spare time. I know that women often have a hard time losing their baby weight, but I’m here to tell you that men gain baby weight too, and have just as much trouble finding the time to work it off!
— Peter S.
Making Four the Magic Number
I don’t have a lifetime history of dieting or trying to lose weight; I’ve been at a healthy weight most of my life. But about ten years ago, I started gaining for no apparent reason. I wasn’t doing anything different. I wasn’t eating any more than usual or exercising any less. But before I knew it, I was carrying 140 pounds on my 5-foot-2-inch frame and feeling very uncomfortable. Even though I only had 10 pounds to lose, and I lost it within a few weeks by cut- ting back on the amount of calories I consumed, I had trouble keeping it off. My biggest problem was (and still is) trying to resist the treats and sweets my coworkers bring into the office on a regular basis. At my job, there always seems to be some reason to stop working and have a celebration.
Now I never let my weight creep up by more than 4 pounds. If I let it get that far, I start getting strict again with my diet. I eat half a sandwich for lunch rather than a whole one and I eat plenty of big salads with just a teaspoon of olive oil for dressing. I eat fruit at least three times a day. I also make sure I
eat something every two and a half hours so I don’t get hungry, even if it’s just a cucumber. For lunch, I bring calorie-controlled packaged entrees to the office and heat them up in the microwave oven. And I leave room in my calorie budget for office parties!
As long as I don’t let it go any further than 4 pounds, and I stick to a strict plan, I can lose those 4 pounds within a week or two. The secret is to never let it get out of hand. — Sophie M.
Eating Smart While Eating Out and Cruising to a Lower Weight
As a food writer and restaurant reviewer with a weekly newspaper column, I eat lunch and dinner out at least several times a week. To be fair to the restaurant I’m reviewing, I have to go back two or three times to try a good sampling of menu offerings. In addition to the food I eat at restaurants, I attend press events introducing new food products, go on local and international trips sponsored by food associations, and encounter packages of food that routinely arrive on my desk from companies that want me to review their products. A dream job, right? Yes, in many ways, that’s true, but it does have its dark side.
I knew when I took this job that I was committing dietary suicide. But I love food and couldn’t resist the opportunity. I told myself I would just do it for a year. Six years later, I was 40 pounds heavier, up from a perfect size 8 to a tight size 14, always feeling bloated and miserable, and still writing restaurant reviews. I knew I had to do something, but losing weight isn’t easy when you eat for a living. Sure, I could cut back on snacking and eat a little less when I went out, but I knew my only real hope was to start exercising as well.
What actually got me to the gym was an invitation to go on a Mediterranean cruise. You know the joke about cruises: You board as a passenger and dis- embark as cargo. I knew that if I was going to be sailing and eating for almost two weeks, and starting off at a 40-pound disadvantage, I had to take some preventive measures. Over the course of several weeks, by exercising regularly, canceling my daily midafternoon vending machine visits, foregoing the breadbasket when I went out to eat, and taking “sampling bites” of the food I was reviewing, I managed to lose 12 pounds.
The best part of the story, though, was that I went on that cruise and came home another 8 pounds lighter! When you’re hiking steep walkways on a volcanic island, visiting ruins that you can only see by foot, and climbing end- less steps to get to a medieval mountaintop town, you don’t need an elliptical trainer. Even though, at the end of the day, all roads led back to a cruise ship that offered 1,001 ways to sabotage my diet, I was able to enjoy it because I had done my exercise, and then some. — Cindy K.
Having a Baby, Losing the Weight
By the end of my pregnancy, I had gained nearly 60 pounds. I started at around 130 and ended up close to 190. The baby was two and a half weeks overdue and I was retaining fluid, so with the birth I instantly lost 35 of those pounds. With breastfeeding and a hectic work schedule, I lost another 5 pounds without trying. The remaining 20 stayed right where they were for the next five years.
The first step I took was to add some exercise to my daily routine. I never had a good time to go to a gym, so I started walking, instead of riding, as often as I could. Eventually I added a yoga class every week, and then two or three a week. I started feeling fitter and more flexible, but still had only lost a few of those 20 pounds.
Even though I was very conscientious about my daughter’s nutrition, I was just too busy, and too often too tired to prepare healthful meals for myself. I would fill up on high-calorie snacks throughout the day and sweet stuff late at night. I finally joined a weight-loss program, which forced me to look at what I was eating, how much, and when.
The program made me aware of portion control and now I’m less likely to overeat. I never feel deprived because now that I’m paying attention to what I eat, I always seem to have room for a glass of wine or a piece of chocolate at the end of the day. I eat better overall because I’ve become fussier about the quality of the food I eat. I don’t want to waste any calories!
One of the most effective tools the program uses is a weekly weigh-in. Sometimes it reminds me that calories from those cookies I sneak in at mid- night when I’m not even hungry start to add up. At other times it’s a comfort to know that I’m progressing toward my goal. It has taken me more than a year to lose 15 pounds, and I still have 2 pounds to go to reach my goal weight. It’s a slow process but I’m confident that by taking this route, I’ll be able to keep those extra pounds off for good. — Juliette K.
Counting Calories as the Years Go By
For years, decades even, I ate whatever I wanted and never gained weight. Even in my late thirties, I was still able to eat large volumes of food — pretty much whatever and whenever I wanted. If I gained a few pounds, I just had to watch it for a week or two and my weight would go back down.
That all seemed to change overnight. I hit my forties and I started feeling thick and heavy. One day I was trying on clothes in a department store that has those 3-way mirrors that show you what you look like from behind. Need I say more? It had been years since I’d seen my backside, and let me tell you, it was a horrifying sight. All I saw when I looked in that mirror was baggy, ripply skin hanging from my thighs, arms that wobbled when I lifted them, and a stomach with accordion folds.
I immediately put myself on a diet and lost about 18 pounds over the course of three months. I didn’t go on a lowfat diet, a low-glycemic diet, a high protein diet, a low-carbohydrate diet (bite your tongue!), or any theme diet at all, for that matter. I lost the weight the old-fashioned way, by counting calories. I carried a lined pad with me wherever I went and wrote down everything I ate with the approximate number of calories. When I got to 1,400 calories, I stopped eating for the day. (It only took one day to realize I had to spread those calories out or I wouldn’t be able to eat for the rest of the day after lunch!)
A low-calorie diet was the only type of diet I could live with, because it allowed me to eat all types of food. As it turns out, that’s the only type of weight-loss diet that really works for anyone, at any age. I should know. I wrote this book! — Susan M.
Buddying Up to Lose Weight
Years ago, I joined a commercial weight-loss program and it helped me lose weight. Recently when I decided to lose 10 pounds more, I figured I could use what I had learned from the program and just do it myself. At the same time, my friend and fellow teacher came into my office and she, too, wanted to shed some pounds. We made it our new year’s resolution to lose weight together and support each other along the way.
We first went to the school nurse’s office and borrowed her scale for a weigh- in. We decided on a weekly weigh-in in the privacy of our own homes — where we could take our clothes off and weigh a pound less! I dug up some old material from the program and we started our calorie-controlled diets.
We found out that a local sandwich shop would deliver customized lowfat submarine sandwiches to us at school for lunch Monday through Friday. We used our lunch hour to discuss food and to help each other plan ahead when one of us was going to a party or out to eat at a restaurant. We helped each other stay motivated and reminded each other that being thinner was much more appealing than eating an extra couple of meatballs.
One day, months later, my friend came to work and showed me that her pants were very loose. I had lost some weight, too. We knew we couldn’t have gotten that far without each other’s support. We felt so good about it that we decided to keep going even after we both reached our goal weights. Two and a half years later, I have lost 25 pounds, am down two sizes, bought a whole new wardrobe, and finally threw out my “fat” clothes. My friend lost close to 20 pounds, got pregnant, and gave birth to a healthy baby.
To maintain my weight, I eat pretty much the same thing everyday for break- fast, lunch, and snacks, and always have a light dinner, except on Saturday nights, when I go out to eat. That’s when I eat whatever I want, practice a little portion control, and thoroughly enjoy myself. — Nancy B.
Staying Strong with “Want Power”
When I got out of the service, I was extremely fit. In a sense, I had no choice — the Army worked us out and fed us well so that we would be in the best possible shape. I’m a good-size man and, at the time, I weighed 182 pounds.
As I moved up in the business world, I found that along with a fair share of promotions and success came more sedentary office positions, too many social and professional functions, and not enough time to be active. Next thing I knew, I was tipping the scales at 240 pounds.
I was living in New York at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and watched the towers fall from my Brooklyn home. It had a profound affect on me. I was scheduled to have prostate surgery the following day, and of course it was delayed for a month while everyone in the city was trying to figure out how to get their lives back on track again. I didn’t realize it at the time, but while I was waiting to have the surgery, I started to become depressed. Before the delay, I had been worried about having the surgery, and now I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to have it in time to treat my condition. Although I had my surgery in time and, like most New Yorkers, had started to recover from the events of 9/11, I was still feeling rather morose and apathetic. I began to eat more and more as a way of distracting myself from these feelings and, probably, in an attempt to feel some pleasure.
I may have gotten back on track sooner, but the following summer I fell and broke four ribs. It was a long time before I could move freely again. I kept eating and kept gaining weight. I noticed signs that my weight was starting to affect my health. I found myself gasping for breath one night as I walked from one airport terminal to the next. I went to my doctor, who immediately sent me to a pulmonary specialist. He found I wasn’t getting enough air into my lungs and sent me home with a tank of oxygen. I was also diagnosed with sleep apnea. At that point I weighed 343 pounds, and I was scared.
Eight months and many low-cal meals later, I’m down to 272 pounds. I’m still working on my weight, but I know I’ll get to my goal of 220 because I’m com- mitted to improving my health. I eat less and at regular times. I’ve stopped relying on will power; now I rely on “want power.” I want this more than any- thing else right now. I’ve joined a commercial weight-loss program because I need and believe in the structure of a good diet plan and the help and guidance of counselors who have struggled with weight issues themselves and come out as winners. — Mike C.
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