Makeovers to Last a Lifetime
Sometimes the best way to learn how to lose weight and keep it off is by following the sensible examples of others who've done it successfully. Here are five inspiring real-life stories of women and men who changed their eating and exercise habits and collectively lost hundreds of pounds. In the process they shed both a host of health problems and a debilitating negative self-image.
A Walk on the Slim Side
At 42, Leslie Arnim is a diet expert. She knows all the weight-loss plans that don't work for her, but happily, she discovered one that works like a charm.
When she weighed 360 pounds, she was still trying diet programs like Weight Watchers. (She needed to lose 15 pounds before her weight would even register on their scale.) Even though the organization helped Leslie lose her fat, her frustration grew.
"I was craving foods and feeling deprived," she recalls. "I hated the idea of living the rest of my life with a food scale in my purse and a weekly food diary to fill out!" That's when Leslie decided to join the Prevention Walking Club, launching a walking habit that has helped her shed 170 pounds and has taken her from a size 56 to a size 14. Best of all, she's stayed there.
"When I first started my walking program, my knees and hips hurt terribly. I consulted my doctor, and he said it was probably because of my weight. He said that the pain was actually not as dangerous for me as the fat. I just needed to keep at it, slowly."
Leslie's pain came and went. "It seemed as though every time I lost another 30 or 40 pounds, the aches would start again." But as she soon came to realize, "My body was simply adapting to the changes brought about by my weight loss.
"The walking club logbook really helped me during those painful days. I would write down how far I walked and how I felt. Just keeping a record really improved my mood and kept me in touch with my accomplishments," she says. Today her knees are fine, her hips no longer ache, and she has no sign of osteoarthritis.
As far as her eating habits are concerned, "I eat when I'm hungry," she says. "Some days I eat a little more than I need, sometimes a little less. It all seems to balance out. I did a lot of reading about eating and emotions, and I got some counseling on how I had always used food to soothe myself. These days I watch my emotions more than I watch my calories. It works!"
And because Leslie dropped her weight slowly over a two-year period, her face stayed relatively wrinkle-free. "But I had lots of sagging skin on my belly and thighs. I used to look like one of those Chinese dogs, all wrinkly," she says. "But I haven't had any cosmetic surgery, and my skin actually seems to be shrinking as I continue to walk and work out."
She likes to reserve her evenings for walking, "but sometimes I get caught up in everything, and I slack off and the weight comes back a little," she admits. "Then I fall back on the walking club. Reading the newsletters helps inspire me and get me motivated again. I use lots of walking tapes to keep from being bored.
"These days my routine is varied," Leslie adds. "Some days I walk, some days I do aerobics and some mornings I just lie in bed and smile at my muscles!"
Join the Prevention Walking Club. For just $3.95 you'll receive our Walkpower booklet with helpful hints for beginning your walking program, a yearlong log and an awards coupon with colorful stickers to chart your progress. And look to Prevention magazine every month for tips and inspiration from "Walker's World." For information about the Prevention Walking Club, write to: Prevention Magazine, 33 East Minor Street, Emmaus, PA 18098.
He's Having the Last Laugh
As an overweight child, John Passadino, of Bellerose, New York, discovered that fat was funny. In school he'd clown around about his hefty shape to get his share of laughs--and the spotlight. But at 29, the computer analyst-turned-part-time-actor-and-comedian finally realized his weight was no laughing matter.
At 5'7" he had reached 212 pounds. His cholesterol had climbed to 375, his legs frequently cramped up and his breathing was labored. That was when he decided to get serious about weight loss. With a little self-education, he was able to write himself a new routine for living, with a sensible diet and exercise at center stage. And the results would make anyone smile.
"When I was growing up, people always said, 'He's eating, God bless him! He's healthy!' Or else, 'Eat the fat. It'll keep you warm in the winter!' So I did eat the fat, and lots of it. I ate hamburgers, hot dogs, cakes and candy. No wonder I was the fat kid in class. None of the girls were ever interested in me. That was why I became the class clown--to get attention."
By the time John was in eighth grade, he hit 163 pounds and went on the first of many crash diets. "I lost a lot of weight, but by high school I'd put it all back on. After that I tried a lot of other crash diets--like a grapefruit or a one-meal-a-day diet--to lose weight for special occasions, such as weddings. I'd lose about 20 pounds, but afterward my weight would go right back up."
As the computer analyst began to moonlight as a comedian, he found that he could use his jowly appearance to get laughs. But all the while he was afraid the audience was laughing at his body, not his jokes. "I was afraid to lose weight for fear of losing laughs," he admits.
By June of 1988, his 212 pounds were causing major physical problems for John. "I was experiencing muscle cramps in my legs. My breathing was so labored people could hear it when I talked to them on the phone. And when I had my cholesterol tested, it was 375."
John's doctor told him that his weight was putting him at risk for developing diabetes and that his elevated cholesterol was making him a candidate for heart disease, warnings that didn't surprise him. "My father had suffered his first angina attack in his late forties," John recalls. "I kept looking at all his medications and thinking, Am I going to have to do this when I'm in my forties? This is crazy! It's time to make a permanent change. And that's just what I did."
The comic had to learn a whole new act. He'd never learned how to eat right, so he had to completely educate himself about nutrition. "My first step was to get some books on health and nutrition from the library," he recalls. "I learned how much I should be eating to maintain my weight as well as how much less I'd have to eat to lose some." The biggest revelation to John? "I realized I would have to drastically cut my fat intake."
He set out to lose a modest five to ten pounds, and began by cutting out fatty red meats in favor of skinless chicken. He swapped ice cream for fruit, and swore off the egg yolks that were helping to keep his cholesterol count high.
"I also knew from my reading that I had to exercise if I wanted to lose weight and keep it off," he says. "But I had never been active in my life--my weight had turned me off to exercise.
"So I started out slowly. I began riding a stationary bike for just five minutes a day. It was so easy that each time I finished, I felt as if I hadn't done anything! But I knew I would burn myself out if I did too much too soon. So I stuck with just a five-minute ride every day for two weeks."
By the third week, John was up to 10 minutes a day. The following week, he rode for 15 minutes. Not only did he begin losing weight very easily but he also suffered no hunger pangs at all. Within a month of starting his exercise program and fat cutback, he'd lost 10 pounds. And after three months, he was riding the stationary bike for about 40 minutes a day and was thrilled to see his cholesterol reading drop down to 213.
"Once I saw results," says John, "I really got into losing weight and cut back my diet a little further. I started drinking low-fat milk instead of whole milk and eating low-fat yogurt and cheeses instead of the higher-fat versions. But I allowed myself pizza once a week as an incentive to keep going."
By January 1989, he had stepped up his exercise program, too. "I began weight lifting to tone my muscles, and I even started jogging. I started out slowly, jogging for just 15 minutes. Then I worked up to a half hour. Within six months, I was jogging for 40 minutes at a time.
"I was rediscovering my body," he adds, "and it felt great to be able to do all the things I'd never been able to do in the past, such as play paddleball and ride my bike. I didn't turn into an athlete, but I did feel more coordinated. And I never would have thought of jogging before I started my program! But then my joints started hurting. I had read that walking was as effective as running, so I scrapped the jogging and took up walking instead."
In addition to his regular walking regimen, he started taking the train to his comedy and acting jobs, getting off at an earlier stop and walking the rest of the way. The walk was about 30 to 40 minutes each way, and John would do it two or three times a week. By that spring he was down to 150 pounds, and his cholesterol had dipped to 196.
The following year John became a total vegetarian, excluding even dairy products. "I became very fanatical about my diet, and I was trying to squeeze too much exercise into my already tight schedule. As a result, I was under a lot of stress. So I decided to relax a little, in both my diet and exercising."
By then he could easily afford to let up. In June 1990, when he stopped trying to lose weight and started trying to maintain, he weighed only 138 pounds. "I really looked too thin then, and not just to my mother, who insisted I was sick! So I put myself on a maintenance plan that I continue to follow today. I drink skim milk and eat nonfat yogurt. I eat egg whites, but still no yolks. I have fish twice a week--mainly tuna and salmon and sometimes scallops or shrimp--rather than meat, and occasionally beans and rice." He also tries to avoid sugar and alcohol.
John has relaxed his exercise program, with no adverse effects. Now he walks at a brisk pace four times a week for 30 to 60 minutes. If the weather is bad, he opts for 45 minutes on his exercise bike, and he does calisthenics three or four times a week.
The results have been great. The cramping in his legs is gone, and he can breathe easily now. He boasts a 32-inch waist, and his weight is a steady 145. What's more, his cholesterol stays within a healthy 190-to-
210 range.
As for his career, "I'm happy to say my weight loss has actually helped, rather than hurt, my comedy," John says. "Once I lost weight, I realized I would have to rely on my talent to be funny--there was no fat to do it for me anymore. As a result, I think I'm funnier now than I ever was!"
Pumped Up, Slimmed Down
Mark Cuatt is half the man he used to be--less than half, in fact! At the age of 19, Mark weighed 465 pounds. Today, at age 22, he's a solid 225.
How do you lose 240 pounds? you may be wondering. "The same way you lose 5 or 10 pounds," says Mark. "You learn to eat smart and you start to get some exercise. If it worked for me, it'll work for anyone."
Mark woke up one day and felt a sense of determination to change his life that he likened to a religious experience. "I'd been on diets before, but somehow I knew it would work this time. It was a strange feeling how certain I was that I wouldn't cheat anymore.
"I'm not sure what triggered it," he continues. "All I knew was that all my friends were either getting married or going off to school, and I was being left alone. Good friends are hard to come by when you weigh 465 pounds; I didn't make new ones easily. I definitely felt discriminated against because of my size, both socially and at work. But through it all, I was determined to change."
After seeing a doctor to rule out thyroid or other physical problems, the first thing Mark did was to cut out snacks. "As a kid, our refrigerator worked on the open-door policy: I could eat whenever and whatever I wanted. So I decided to change that and eat three balanced meals a day--no snacks.
"Then I started to read everything I could get my hands on about nutrition. I concentrated on cutting fats rather than calories." Today he eats six small meals a day with a total of about 30 grams of fat, which enables him to maintain his weight easily.
The second part of Mark's program was exercise. Walking was the most convenient, and literally the only, exercise he felt comfortable doing. "I walked the first day until I felt tired--about a half mile. Gradually I worked up to a mile, then two, then three. Six miles a day was my maximum. By that time I'd lost a lot of weight and I felt comfortable riding my exercise bike.
"Finally, I joined a gym and began to lift weights--I'd gotten so thin, I felt I needed to build up my body a little. Today I'm a competitive bodybuilder. I work in a gym, and I'm looking forward to getting my master's degree in nutrition. What a change!"
Mark admits that he encountered lots of emotional ups and downs on his road to a healthy lifestyle. "And I still do. When I weighed 465 pounds, people used to stare and laugh at me when I went to the mall. Now I get stares because I look good and because I'm a bodybuilder, but at times I still feel like people are staring at a fat guy. That's when I feel all the old emotions. I have my weight under control, but sometimes my self-image is scrambling to catch up."
But that's a process he's willing to deal with because the rewards of fitness have been so great. Meanwhile, he warns those attempting to imitate him that the first two weeks will be the hardest. "That's when I craved everything. I was going through withdrawal. How did I cope? Whenever I got a craving, I went for a walk or hopped on my exercise bike."
Now, says Mark, staying trim is a snap. "I don't have any food cravings or feel any frustration or deprivation. The old junk foods just don't appeal to me anymore. And exercise is a permanent part of my life."
A Crossing Guard at the Crossroads
Nancy Myers of Parkersburg, West Virginia, was at a crossroads in her life. On the verge of turning 40, the 5'2" crossing guard had reached a milestone with her weight: 240 pounds. And her back was feeling the brunt of it. With her cholesterol creeping upward, too, she believed that if she didn't slim down soon, she'd never do it. So she stepped into action. Nancy moved from life on the sidelines to life in the fast lane, and bypassed her usual fare for leaner cuisine. The result? She dropped 105 pounds, and seven years later she hasn't turned back.
"I had always heard it was impossible to lose weight after 40," says Nancy. "And there I was at 39 weighing 240 pounds."
She had been heavy all her life, and as a young woman she had tried to lose weight "all the wrong ways. I took diet pills. I took laxatives. I made myself throw up. When you're a teenager without any dates and you think it's because you're too fat--I weighed as much as 170--you'll try anything to lose weight."
Sometimes she succeeded, only to regain the lost weight and then some. But as she got older, she gained more steadily. When she got married and had her first daughter, Nancy gained 50 pounds; with her second daughter, she gained even more.
"I wasn't active at all," Nancy admits, "and my eating habits were pretty poor. I could sit down at night and eat four or five peanut butter and jelly or bologna sandwiches. And I loved all kinds of fattening sweets like cakes and pies. I thought, I'll drink diet soda to balance out the calories. But the truth was, I didn't care how much I gained."
However, once her daughters got a little older, she started working as a crossing guard at a grade school, and then it was a different story. "People
I did not even know started making fun of me," Nancy recalls sadly. "Strangers would holler things like, 'Don't walk on the sidewalk! You're gonna crack it!'
"I acted as if it didn't affect me, but it did. And my weight was starting to affect my health, too." Nancy had such severe muscle spasms in her lower back (worsened by her weight) that she had to be taken to a hospital several times. Though her blood pressure was a safe 120/80, her cholesterol, at 233, was definitely high.
But the turning point for Nancy came the day before Valentine's Day 1985, when she walked up the stairs at her home and found she could hardly breathe. "I decided that was it. It was time to try to lose weight for good. The following day, I gave all of my Valentine's candy away!"
Next, Nancy started cutting out all the fattening sweets she used to eat--the candies, cakes and pies--as well as eliminating salt. "I used to pour salt on every bite of food I took," she says. "But I knew from reading about health that salt makes you retain water and can raise blood pressure in people who have a tendency toward hypertension."
She also began eating three balanced meals a day: cereal with fruit for breakfast, a salad for lunch and a chicken or fish dish for dinner. "I cut red meat and lots of other fats out of my diet. I'd never used a lot of butter, but I started using low-fat salad dressings rather than rich ones. And I began cooking differently. I used to fry everything, so I switched to broiling or microwaving, adding no fat whatsoever."
Nancy still loved sandwiches, but she went from those made with fatty meats to tuna sandwiches without mayonnaise, topped instead with lettuce and tomato, all on reduced-calorie bread. "In fact," she says, "I found I loved to eat plain tomato sandwiches!"
For snacks she turned to celery, bananas or apples and, every once in a while, artificially sweetened candies to satisfy her sweet tooth. She also drank plenty of low-fat milk, which satisfied her between meals. "But," she adds, "I knew dieting alone wouldn't help me keep off weight. So I started to exercise, too."
She understood the value of exercise because she had seen the good it had done for her husband. He had had a weight problem himself until the year before Nancy started her diet, and jogging had helped him shed 65 pounds. Nancy had never gone jogging with him because she was afraid of hurting her bad back "and I thought I was too fat. But when I started my diet, he suggested that I try walking. That I knew I could handle."
She started out walking two to three miles twice a day, between her crossing-guard shifts. Then she'd walk again in the evenings with one of her daughters, who's very active and encouraged her mom in her new fitness regimen. "I started out slowly, figuring it would be difficult for me to breathe," says Nancy. "But I found I could do it, no problem!"
Soon she started speeding up and increasing her distance. After several weeks, she was walking five miles three times a day, every day except Sunday. "The more I walked, the more I enjoyed it! And after a few months of walking and eating right, the pounds just melted off. Instead of making fun of me, people were stopping to compliment me!" By June Nancy had lost 80 pounds.
But that same month her weight loss reached a standstill. "And since I was still determined to lose more weight, I decided to join my husband and try jogging. I still felt fat, and I didn't want anyone to see me, so I went to a nearby cemetery that's two miles around. At first, I could only jog down the hills and walk the rest--my breathing was very uncomfortable. But slowly I built up my endurance and I got used to breathing correctly. Soon I could jog the whole two miles!"
It took about three weeks for Nancy to get off her weight-loss plateau, and she started dropping weight again. Over the next three months, she lost 25 more pounds. "I also ran a two-mile race with some hills that, to me, seemed like mountains. I didn't place, but I did finish, and that was my goal."
Nancy discovered that she loved jogging so much that she joined a runners' club. "I started running races and even won a few trophies in my age division. I'm up to running a nine-minute mile!"
By the time Nancy reached her 40th birthday that August, she was down to about 120 pounds. She had a big celebration "but without a cake!" she says, with no hint of disappointment.
That fall, her weight dipped to below 120 pounds and she started feeling underweight. "So I started eating a little more of the right foods, like skinless chicken, salads and fruits. I even allotted myself some sweets, like low-calorie cake. By doing that, I built my weight back up to 135. I looked much better."
All her hard work paid off. At 40, Nancy was a totally different woman. "When school started in the fall and I returned to my post as the crossing guard, people didn't even recognize me. The mailman who'd passed me for four years didn't know who I was!" she laughs.
Now, seven years later, her weight is holding at 135. Her back problems are gone, her blood pressure has dropped to 108/72 and her cholesterol is down to 200. She works evenings now, so she's switched to afternoon jogs--four to eight miles a day. And instead of hearing nasty comments from strangers, Nancy hears wolf whistles!
"I find that I can eat a lot more now and stay slim as long as I continue to eat a low-fat diet," says Nancy. "I feel great about myself now. I'm never turning back!"
Getting Over "Heartbreak Hill"
When the Reverend St. George Crosse weighed 419 pounds, a parishioner told him, "Some people are Chihuahuas, Reverend Crosse, and some are St. Bernards. You happen to be a St. Bernard."
"My parishioners didn't seem put off by my girth," says Crosse. "I thought people liked you to be big--they associate size with authority. And so many church functions involve food. Everyone is always trying to feed the minister!"
But preaching in the enthusiastic style his parishioners loved left Crosse exhausted and fearing a heart attack. "I had to sit down immediately after my sermons," says Crosse. "I would get so tired and out of breath.
"One day, at a reception following a funeral, I overheard a woman saying, 'How can he teach us to control our spirits when he can't control his appetite?' I figured a lot of other people might be saying the same thing. Then, when two of my close friends had heart attacks and strokes, I decided it was time to do something about my weight."
The first thing Crosse needed was to find determination and self-control. For that, he turned to God. "I had been abusing my body. I prayed for forgiveness and for self-control, as an addict might." His search for an appropriate weight-loss program led him to his dog, Bronco. "He eats when he's hungry, stops when he's full and never stops exercising," says Crosse. "I decided the same thing should work for me."
He soon learned that this was a good place to start, but it wasn't enough. So Crosse began cutting out fried foods, salt and sugar. "I learned to eat lots of fruit and salads during the day. I would eat my main meal, which was also low in fat and well balanced, with my wife in the evening," he says. Then, to attain a 200-pound weight-loss goal, he began a protein-sparing, modified-fasting program under the supervision of his physician. And Crosse began to walk.
"At first, I'd just walk around my multilevel house--a few steps here and there kept me huffing and puffing. I could walk for only ten minutes or so.
"Then my wife and I started walking together outside. The biggest challenge was a hill by our house we nicknamed 'Heartbreak Hill.' On the way back up the hill to our house, I'd have to stop halfway because my back ached so terribly."
Gradually, Crosse worked up to 4 miles every weekday, with a 12-mile walk on Saturday. And Heartbreak Hill stopped hurting.
"My weekday walks are often on a treadmill because my job in Washington doesn't allow me the time to walk in my neighborhood. But on Saturday mornings, I walk six miles out and six miles back. I like to walk alone because it gives me the chance to practice my sermons. Sometimes my wife joins me for a while, but my pace has gotten a little too brisk
for her."
The rewards for his pilgrimage? Today, at 53, Crosse is a healthy 234 pounds. "At 6'2", I'll always be a big man," says Crosse. "But now I'm healthy. I have energy. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels are healthy. And my daughters are willing to dance with me!"
In fact, his two daughters help keep him on track. "They care enough about me to let me know if I'm putting on a little weight," says Crosse, "and I appreciate that. I've reconciled myself to the fact that keeping my weight down is a lifetime journey for me. As part of my modified-fasting program, if I regain more than 10 percent of my goal weight I return to my meal-
replacement program and, with the help of my physician, eat healthy foods and increase my daily walking.
"That's the great thing about walking," he adds. "On Saturdays, I always pass a tiny, old woman who must be in her nineties. She's going slow, but she's going. Walking is something I'm sure I'll be able to do for a very, very long time."
