"I didn’t recognize the morbidly obese person staring back at me in pictures and in the mirror."
Hi Tosca,
It was so cool hearing you speak and getting to meet you in person at the 2009 Can-Fit Pro tradeshow. You’ve been a big inspiration to me over the past two years and your books, The Eat-Clean Diet® and The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook, have been a big part of my life change. You asked me to send you my story, so here it is with my before and after photos.
I wasn’t always fat. In fact, growing up I was thin and fairly active. When I moved out on my own and got a “real job” when I was 21, I sat on my butt all day and started to gain weight. By the time I got married at 25, I had gained 60 pounds and weighed a total of 232 pounds. I was horrified when I saw my wedding pictures and set out to lose the weight.
Over the next five years, I tried every diet pill and program I could get my hands on. I would lose 80 pounds and then gain it back as soon as I stopped following whatever plan I was on. In the end, I spent over $15,000 on gimmicks. With no success and having gained even more weight, I decided I needed to embrace my curves. Clearly I was meant to be heavy, right?
By the time I was 33, I had stopped weighing myself regularly but thought I weighed about 275 pounds. During a visit to the doctor I found out that in fact I weighed much more than that. I couldn’t believe it, so I went to the store and bought my own scale to test it out. I got on the scale when I got home and saw the numbers flashing back at me – 314 pounds. I hopped on and off in hopes that the numbers would change, but they didn’t. I didn’t recognize the morbidly obese person staring back at me in pictures and in the mirror.
My back ached when I woke up, I didn’t sleep well, going up a flight of stairs took all of my energy and breath and I had panic attacks thinking about not being able to fit in a booth at a restaurant or if I would need a seatbelt extender the next time I had to fly. I was finally ready to change my life for good.
I’m lucky to work at a company that has a great wellness program and a company fitness coordinator. The day after I learned I weighed 314 pounds, I went to her for help. She connected me with a personal trainer named Albert, who I’ve been working with for the last two years. I took me about six months to get into the swing of things, but after a year I had lost 54 pounds!
I was happy with the results but my weight loss stalled after that first year. I took a long hard look at what I was doing. I had been reading Oxygen magazine and your column for a long time, and finally decided to check out your cookbook. I started to read more about Eating Clean and it was like someone hit me over the head! It all started to make sense – I had been eating food that I thought was healthy but it was filled with sugar and chemicals! All of this time I was concerned with calories and fat but never gave much thought to the sugar I was ingesting with my instant breakfasts, granola bars and iced tea!
So, I cleaned up how I ate. I stopped eating processed foods and anything with ingredients I couldn’t pronounce and the weight started to come off again!
Today, I’m about 40 pounds away from my goal weight. I’ve lost 14 inches from my waist and 14 dress sizes. I exercise five times a week, twice a day. When I don’t get to work out I feel tired and crabby. I did my first 5 km run last year and came in last but I didn’t care. This year, I won’t be first but I won’t be last either. I’ve even started to train for a sprint duathlon!
At work, I’ve done presentations on how exercise and The Eat-Clean Diet™ changed my life. People still chase me down the hall and send me emails to tell me how they’ve changed the way they eat because of my presentation! It’s an amazing feeling to know that I, of all people, have the power to inspire others!
Thank you, Tosca!
Brenda