Old Pals: New Challenges

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Where do begin when you have nearly 30 years of memories to draw upon. Debbie and I met when we were both attending Ohio University. I was a photographer learning graphic design because well I was just drawn to the subject. Debbie was design major and we became friends when we spent countless all nighters in the old art building.

There were many laughs then and it never stopped over the years. After college, I moved to Washington D.C and asked Debbie if she wanted to make the move and we became roomates. Two Ohio gals living in the big city. We loved our pad in the heart of the city. There were many parties at our cool apartment and many diets that we went on to try to offset all the parties that we attended.

Recently, we had a good laugh when I brought up the cabbage diet that we tried. It was a large apartment but not large enough when we were both eating cabbage three times a day, if you know what I mean.

I moved back to Ohio and Debbie stayed in D.C. and got married and had kids. We never lost contact but time and distance does have a way of coming in the way of old friends. When I would return to the city she was the first one I would call and say that I was coming to town just like when I did the weekend that the photo was snapped that began my weight loss journey. She is the one standing beside me.

She like many of my friends are amazed that I was able to overcome obesity. Debbie is now battling a weight problem brought on by a busy schedule, a health condition and old father time. I asked her if she would like to join my blog and try to lose some weight by following my tips and she agreed.

We are excited about rekindling our friendship and we hope that our blog amuses you. Just two old friends talking about what gals talk about most, food, dieting and life.

Here are a few words from my pal:

My name is Debbie. I have been married for 19 years and have two children.

My daughter is 17 years old and my son is 14. I am a graphic designer by trade and I live in the suburbs of Washington, DC. 

I generally was in good health and maintained a decent weight until I hit my 40s.

My metabolism began slowing down and I was slowly putting on weight.

Then I began experiencing symptoms over the course of a year including joint pain and debilitating fatigue. My blood tests were not within normal ranges.  In the fall of 2001 I was diagnosed with Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (MCTD) and began a battery of medications to get me back on track. By 2002 I had accumulated a weight gain of 50 pounds. I was miserable.

It has been 8 years now. It has been a long journey back to “normal”. For the past 3 years I have been maintaining my health with the exception of the extra weight.  It’s time to deal with the weight and start an exercise program I can live with.

Next week: I gave Debbie an assignment to write down her goals for this year. Obtainable goals, she is bright but I am not sure that winning the Noble Peace Prize is in either one of our futures. I also asked her to write down her normal days schedule. Every Monday we will be checking in to mark her progress.

Reaching for the switch

 

For the record my mother bought me this light switch for Christmas several years ago. She giggled when I unwrapped the present, “Its art,” she proclaimed.

If you have seen the Joy Fit Club, one of the consistent questions that is asked of the participants is what was their Ah-ha moment. You know the one minute in time that the switch is finally turned on and you finally realize that your existence is in jeopardy if you don’t do something to make your health a priority.

My Ah-ha moment:

Looking back at that one minute in time is very clear to me even 5 years later. It was just a speck of time in my life but one that forever changed my existence. 

I hadn’t traveled much for a few years and I pushed myself out of my comfortable, overweight cocoon and went to visit friends from college that lived in Washington, DC. I had moved there right out of college and this merry band of friends is closely tied to the best times of my life.

When the snapshot came in the mail, I couldn’t wait to see the lasting images from my weekend trip. I was totally unprepared to see myself in comparison to my friends. We were all hamming it up for the camera like we had done so many times in the past but I seemed a stranger in that photograph.

Who was that woman in the back with the white dress?

Then it happened. The switch went on in my head. I sat there with the photos in my hand wanting to tear them up because I didn’t like what I saw. Not my friends but me. Who was that woman and how did she get to be so large? I knew the answers but it was that moment in time when I finally took action.

I finally admitted to myself that I had a problem and I needed to go about solving it. It was time to make myself a priority. It was time for me to fix me.

I was morbidly obese and the photos that I held in my hand were proof of that.

I needed to do something. I needed to finally stop ignoring my undeniable problem with food and confront it and myself.

Now people ask me all the time how I lost nearly 200 pounds, and I look them in the eye and tell to put down their fork and start moving their butts. Unfortunately that is when some turn off the switch and tune me out. They want quick solutions but there aren’t any. I am sorry.

But there are plenty of small steps that you can take to make your health a number one priority. Yes, making time for you. Time that is spent making sure that you have healthy, properly portioned meals. Time spent taking that walk that you always talk about taking. Time spent reading about good nutrition and time spent getting the right amount of sleep.

It’s New Years Day, time for new beginnings, time for you to make your health a number one priority this year.

 

What a year it has been

 

This year has been a real roller coaster ride for me. A failed relationship, my profession slipping away and all the while trying to keep my weight loss mission on track.

I have learned a great deal about myself and what makes me tick. When you put yourself out there like I have done with this blog, it makes you take stock in your thoughts and actions.

The most revealing thing that I have learned is that I was reluctant to lose the last 25 pounds because it would put me firmly in the land of normal weight people. I have never lived there before and therefore uncomfortable with the attention it would bring me. I hid behind my fat my whole life but it is time to embrace what I have done for myself and live life to it’s fullest.

The one thing that I am sure of is that I want to help others do what I have done. We all know that losing weight is hard and losing more than half of myself has been the hardest thing I have ever done. But I am now living the life I always dreamed of and I am so glad that I put down my fork and started moving my butt.

 

 

It was the small actions that when followed daily turned out to have the greatest results.

Weighing myself daily.

Eating balanced, well-portioned meals

Getting regular exercise

And most importantly, making myself and my health, a daily priority.

Join me in the New Year for a great year of healthy living. I deserve it and so do you!

 

Accountability tools

 

Every year I go the local discount store and get the cheapest calendar that I can find. I bring it home and put it right by my scale. You know the scale that is screaming at me for eating all those holiday cookies. I even put a pen on top of it so that I don’t have an excuse to write down what my morning number is.

Many days it is the same as the day before but at least I am holding myself accountable for my actions. Since I started my weight loss mission five years ago I have gone through two scales. I now have a digital one that is a few pounds off from the one at my doctor’s office, which is the one that I use as my base camp since I started at 340 pounds. It is hard to fool the doctor’s scale especially when the nurse is standing there writing down the numbers in you chart.

My scale at home is three pounds off but I take that into account on my calendar.

Once a month I take a handful of measurements with a tape measure that I keep close at hand. Some months I have only lost a few pounds but I have lost several inches. In the end it has kept me on track with all the documentation. I strongly recommend that if you don’t do this now that documenting our actions be part of your New Year’s resolution agenda. It worked for me.

For give me scales for I have sinned

OK, not really sinned but overate during the holidays. Shock! Time to get back on the dieting horse as it were. Time to focus my New Year’s resolutions of losing those pesky pounds that seem to jump on to my body when I am not looking. I know how it happens; I just choose the chocolate over the carrot sticks. Welcome to my reality.

But it is time to get back to my mission at hand. After all, I am going to see Joy Bauer in a month and I don’t want her to think that I fell off my wagon. She is coming to Lakewood to help kick off a Live Well Lakewood campaign that several of my friends are launching here in our town.

It is going to be a day-long event that we cooked up to provide people with the tools to live a healthier life. Joy is coming to talk about nutrition and all of its benefits. Plus she is doing a book signing for her LIFE Diet book that hit the bookstores just before Christmas.

My copy arrived the day after Christmas, just in time for me to use it to beat myself upside of my head for over eating all those buttery holiday cookies.

Lisa’s New Year’s resolution: Reach my goal of 140 pounds by eating healthy meals and working out every day. I know that I can do it. I have to make myself a priority and then stick with my plan. This is the hard part for me but it has to start with the simple steps. Making my health my number 1 priority is the best way to start off any year.

 

A visual reminder to stay away from the cookies

 

Eating healthy during the holiday season

 

I am working on revising the website for the New Year as well as joining my family the holidays. Take care and remember that calories in means you have to work them off one way or the other. I have spent way too many holidays not remembering that and then wishing on New Year’s Day that I didn’t have so much weight to take off in the new year.

This next year I will be learning to properly maintain my new weight. Not an easy task but it beats taking it off again.

Bring a salad for the holidays, dress it up and make it a focal point of your table. It’s the gift that will keep your friends and family healthy in the new year.

Give the gift of healthy living this season

For those of us who leave the holiday shopping to the end of the season here are a few suggestions for that someone special on your list. I know that some are reluctant to give a gift that someone might take the wrong way but I say risk it. In the end you are thinking about making them healthier and that is what most important.

Go to the workouts and book suggestions at on my menu bar. You can order them directly from Amazon and have them delivered to that their doorstep.

I am hoping that Santa brings me Joy’s new LIFE diet book. 

Words from my diet buddy

I’ve been the quintessential yo-yo dieter all my life. I was on the way-too-high end of my adult weight range when my colleague Lisa Griffis threw down the gauntlet — Let’s do a weight-loss challenge. 

I’ve done such challenges before with good results. But this challenge felt a little different. Lisa is my weight-loss heroine. How could I compete with the woman who lost more than half of her body weight by eating right and exercising sensibly?

Lisa asked me for a dollar bill. She framed my bill with one of her own — that’s the plaque to which she has referred on more than one occasion. It’s the talisman of success that we’ve passed between us since the middle of May, based on which one lost a greater percentage of weight.

Yes, I’ve lost more weight than Lisa has… until recent weeks. I had more weight to lose than she did. But my mother’s death of heart failure a year ago, partly caused by lifelong obesity, had stopped motivating me to get my weight under control.

Lisa went to New York this fall to be on the Joy Luck Club show. She accepted a new challenge from Joy — lose the 20 pounds that stood between her and her ultimate goal. Lisa’s narrowed that gap by more than half. Now, it’s Lisa who’s kicking MY butt. 

So long but not goodbye

My diet buddy and friend Mary left the paper this week. It was sad to see her walk out the door but I know that she is going out there to start another chapter in her life.

This spring we were talking and she was lamenting that her weight was higher than she would like. I was in the same boat. Last year was a bad year in my weight loss journey. I had major surgery, got hit by a car while riding my bike and later blew my ankle out. In my basement are the three braces that I wore last year while I healed from all the traumas. In short, I put on 20 pounds because I wasn’t able to workout. And not to mention the chocolate I ate to make everything seem a bit better.

So when I heard Mary talking about her weight problems it made me throw down a challenge for both of us to get back on track and make the scale start moving in the right direction.

In an earlier blog, I told you about our bet. I found a scale at work in the mailroom, we used it once a week and who ever won for the week got the two dollar bet to put on their desk. We passed it back and forth to each other since May 15^th. The bet was supposed to end October 1 but we decided to keep going so that we could reach our goals of 140 pounds.

The truth is that the plague was on her desk 17 weeks and on mine for 11 times. She lost 35.5 pounds and I lost 28.5. She kicked my butt as it were but we are both winners. We are planning to keep up the challenge and work toward our goals in the New Year.

The best part about our challenge is that it brought us closer as friends and we both had someone to lean on and confess our sins to. That’s what friends are for and our backsides are smaller because of our challenge.

Find a diet buddy and start your own friendly wager in the New Year. It will help keep you on track.

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