Weight Loss Stories

Like many of you, I hate to wait to lose weight. Like many of you, I wanted instant results.

It was about a 29-year wait before I lost the weight. Twenty-nine years is a long time.

In our instant gratification society, we do not like to wait. We want the Oprah cure. The only problem is she made something like $222 million just last year, and she can afford a personal trainer. Yet, her weight yo-yos like the tricks I used to perform in elementary school: around the world, walking the dog and over the shoulder.

The weight finally came off when I decided just to wait and forget every weight-loss diet or clinic invented by humankind.

I was never morbidly obese, but usually about 10 to 20 pounds above my desired weight of around 185. Yet I always exercised.

My only month of weight-loss success started on New Year’s Eve, 1979. I can recall the street I was on, driving in the darkness, where I was going and my New Year’s Eve pledge. I told myself: no junk food, no chocolate and no soft drinks for one month. I kept the pledge and lost 10 pounds.

I gained the weight back, however, in a matter of months.

Unfortunately, I did not see the light, as they say, until almost 30 years later. I attended several meetings of weight loss groups in Cape Coral, and nearly everyone there had lost an average of 75 to l00 pounds over the past few years – and kept the weight off.

They kept it off because they measured their food, and they had a weight loss partner they talked to every day. I am all for support groups. I think that is why Consumer Reports recently ranked Weight Watchers, based on responses from thousands of readers, as the number one weight loss program.

I joined Weight Watchers when I first moved to the Cape more than 10 years ago, and I lost some weight. It’s one of the most effective ways of losing weight because you have a large support group that you meet with once a week, and everybody pulls and “weighs in” for everybody.

I could not make the weekly meetings, so I dropped out. The weight I had lost quickly found its way back home.

Now I have just about reached the exact weight for my body frame.

So what finally made me weigh in on the right course of eating? I was measuring food several months ago on one of those food scales when I heard a voice. “This is ridiculous,” the voice inside my head said. “Weighing food may work for some, but it’s not for you.”

I began to think about food and drink. They are intended to be a celebration. We celebrate with food, drink and companionship. When used in moderation, they can feed the body and soul.

We can have it all. We just can’t eat or drink it all. We can and should enjoy it.

It’s when I heard these pearls of wisdom that my attitude changed and the weight came off, two to three pounds a week, probably the way it should. I no longer have to wait for the best weight. It was all in my head.