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Each week, TODAY inducts a new member into nutritionist Joy Bauer's Fit Club. These are determined people who have lost and kept off 100 pounds or more through diet and exercise.

The newest member is 49-year-old Stacy Allendorf, who at 288 pounds, put her job and family's needs before her health. Find out she lost the weight, got healthy and finally regained her self-confidence.

Read her inspiring story and the stories of all the members of the Joy Fit Club by clicking on the tabs to the left.


Joy Bauer is the author of “Food Cures.” For more information on healthy eating, check out Joy’s Web site at www.joybauernutrition.com
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“I remember physically feeling healthy, but emotionally I was shy and lacked confidence,” said Stacy Thurstin Allendorf, a 49-year-old science teacher from Columbia, S.C. “This image of myself led to some pretty stupid dieting, fasting being the favorite. “

At her largest — 288 pounds — Stacy struggled with her fragile self-confidence as she put her job and family’s need before health. To ease the stress, she turned to food for temporary comfort, often snacking on cookies, cakes, muffins. “It was a cheap way to entertain myself,” she said.

After marrying and giving birth to her son, Stacy suffered a string of setbacks and challenges that held her back emotionally and physically. She separated from her husband three weeks after the birth, then reconciled two months later; she transferred to a new school district with a new, difficult boss; and then, the most heartbreaking, her younger brother died in a car crash.

“I stopped looking at the scale at my checkups and I didn't spend a lot of time looking about myself or thinking about it. If I did I grew depressed and would eat more,” Stacy said. “Food was my comfort and I needed comfort.”
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“My life became my job and my son,” Stacy said of her inability to pay proper attention to her body. “Everything else, me included, took a huge backseat for many years.”

When stressed or overwhelmed by either her teaching position or a personal obstacle, Stacy turned to food. Fried foods and starches, often a fleeting comfort, quickly became an addiction she felt incapable of controlling. “There were no limits to a serving size,” she said. “Pizza and hamburgers became a staple.”
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Stacy traces her poor eating habits to a challenging childhood. Although she recalls a generally happy upbringing, playing outdoors and biking with neighbors, she spent a large amount of time eating sweets and baking desserts with her mother. When she hit puberty, she became bigger, which led her two brothers to nickname her “pig,” a hurtful term they used liberally.

“Because I was so body-conscious, I became less active,” she said of her teenage years, in which she fluctuated between 160-178 pounds.

“I felt awkward and clumsy. Becoming less active led to boredom and boredom meant snacking.\" Timid and self-conscious, she shied away from being as outgoing or social. She regained some self-confidence when she started college, but campus life proved disastrous to her diet: Too much work and stress combined with a food-loving boyfriend only intensified her poor eating habits.
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Breakfast: Fast-food steak biscuit; bacon, egg and cheese sandwich; pancakes, large muffins

Lunch: Fried chicken with rolls, mashed potatoes, green beans; spaghetti, cinnamon roll, tossed salad with ranch dressing; macaroni and cheese, ham, roll

Dinner: Meat lovers pizza, fried chicken, pasta, large salads with heavy ranch dressing

Snacks: Ice cream, cookies, potato chips, 10-oz. ounce bag of M&Ms
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In 2003, Stacy was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes, which should have been a jarring wake-up call. Instead, Stacy continued pretending she was immune to the problems that now threatened her health and future.

\"I had found ignoring problems a very successful way of dealing with that, which only highlighted my pathetic failure,\" she said. \"I had reached 288 and still no awakenings!\"

It was only the following year that Stacy realized the extent of her issues: They were affecting her family. During her son's freshman year in college, he put on more than 40 pounds and seemed well on his way to emulating his mother's choices. Even worse, their weekly get-togethers consisted of going out for doughnuts or bagels.

“He didn't move,\" she said. “I knew the road he was going down — my road! I finally saw my future retirement was going to be me lying around, slowly dying, unable to enjoy what could be the very best time of my life.\"
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To celebrate her commitment to change (and her birthday), Stacy ordered an exercise machine and got moving. She began with 30 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week, and set a strict low-fat diet that required 1,200-1,500 calories a day.

To stay focused, she kept track of her calories and exercise in a food journal. In just two weeks, she noticed physical changes and within four, witnessed dramatic results. \"But it still took months before others noticed,\" she said of her early progress. \"That’s how ridiculously obese I was.\"

So as not to deprive herself, her plan included allowing one big but healthy treat every week. Typically it was a four-oz. filet and a baked sweet potato with brown sugar. Then once a month she went all-out on a more extravagant splurge, like Key lime pie or vegetable pizza. It took nearly two years for Stacy to lose 120 pounds, which she credits to taking it in baby steps and rewarding herself for success.

“It was hard giving up my mother's fudge and carrot cake,” she said. “Now if I want to indulge, I can, but only a little. It’s the over ndulgence that should be avoided.”
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Breakfast: 2 egg whites cooked in nonstick pan, 2 slices of wheat bread, nonfat cheese slices

Snacks: Quaker Rice Cakes, Schwan’s Fudgesicle, strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe

Lunch: Peas, baked chicken breast, 1 cup steamed broccoli, 2 oz. of Schwan’s baguette bread

Dinner: Schwan’s LiveSmart Veggie Pizza, tomato, celery
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Now, at 163 pounds, Stacy has reversed the diabetes. She staved off high cholesterol, heart disease and suddenly, \"retirement looks better.\" And she isn’t afraid to stand before a mirror; she’s 120 pounds lighter and feels great.

“Eventually I was able to work out one to two hours daily and loved it,” she said. “You also have to be selfish with your time — I guarded my workout time like a bulldog — and surround yourself with people who love and support you.”

Stacy is thankful that food no longer overwhelms her daily existence; it doesn’t shadow her social life or offer comfort as it did in the past. “Instead of getting a big meal I now share hors d'oeuvres with friends,” she said. “Life now revolves around: movies, going to parks and walking.”

More importantly, her son, following his mother's lead, lost the weight and is living a healthy, happy lifestyle. “My son said at dinner one night, ‘Mom, you're just so much happier now.’"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Kymm Hansen ","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/Kymm_b1.vlarge.jpg","","", "sub", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "358", "222", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

“I was unable to believe that people accepted me the way I was,” said Kymm Hansen, a 37-year-old actress from Julian, Calif. “Comments such as ‘You have such a pretty face’ would be interpreted as ‘It’s a shame we can’t do something about the rest of you!’ ”

Raised by a single mother who placed a large emphasis on weight, Kymm – who was a slightly pudgy child – recalls watching her food intake as young as 9 years old. When her mother went on a diet and exercise regime, Kymm went on one as well. When peers on the playground cruelly mocked her size, she emotionally retreated — becoming increasingly sensitive about her appearance. “I had never been a thin child, but I was a far cry from fat,” Kim said. “But that didn’t stop the teasing from both children and adults alike, who called me names like ‘butterball.’ ”

At home, the young Kymm shared a household with roommates who stocked their communal kitchen with high-calorie, fatty foods that became the ultimate temptation. Since she was left alone most of the day and forbidden to go outside due to an unfenced pool, Kymm found herself stealing their food, hiding candy wrappers between couch cushions while watching hours of TV. And so began Kymm’s long relationship with sneaking food. It didn’t help that the roommate, an adult mom, likened Kymm’s size to that of an elephant.

“Having an adult say something like that, when others had already teased me about my size, confirmed in my mind that they must be right,” Kymm recalled. “I became very self-conscious and guilty when I ate ‘foods that would make me bigger.’ ”

Kymm’s unhealthy eating habits and guilt followed her well into adulthood. Her weight, along with her self-esteem, fluctuated throughout her teens and 20s. When she finished high school and moved to New York City, she used her newfound freedom to eat even more, whenever she pleased. But the more she consumed, the more she damaged her already fragile self-image and her relationships. At 308 pounds, she was so ashamed of her body that she opted to spend much of her time isolated from her friends and family, and even shied away from her long-held dream: acting.

“My life goals were replaced with thoughts of what I would pick up to eat at the store and what movie I would watch while eating it,” Kymm said. “I felt hopeless. Food was there to help me cope with my disappointment in myself and life in general.”
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Kymm admits she used food for “everything.” It became a source of comfort, a quick solution to boredom, and even a means of further torturing herself. She viewed food as a constant companion that would console her, until it ultimately made her feel worse. Personally attached to her favorite foods, Kymm didn’t know how to quit.

Kymm recalls turning on the TV and eating in a daze, unaware of what she consumed. “The two actions seemed to go together,” she said. “I could eat the foods I wanted to eat without having to think about it because my mind was occupied with whatever was playing on the little box in front of me.”

Although her family was concerned, Kymm kept most of her worries to herself. She even tried to hide her uncontrollable eating habits from them during family get-togethers. Never once did she express her fear of how her weight affected her ability to pursue acting. “I felt that would only induce judgment,” Kymm said. “I tried to shift my thoughts onto helping others so that I could avoid the obvious choice of helping myself, since clearly I didn’t know how to do that.”
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As an adult, Kymm generally continued the habits she had adopted as a child. She stocked her shelves with sweet, processed baked goods, her “friends of choice” that always provided a temporary gratification. Kymm skipped breakfasts, then “made up for it” by eating disproportionately large amounts for lunch and dinner.

“I didn’t realize quite how much I was eating unless I made myself uncomfortable,” she said. “I would find myself famished by mid-morning and only have the patience to wait for snack foods. Sometimes I ate entire bags of microwave popcorn with candy and diet soda, only to be followed a few hours later by lunch.”

Kymm’s situation escalated when she accepted a position as an instructional aide in her school district. Teachers' staff rooms were often filled with baked goods and homemade casseroles, and Kymm would eat the free treats in addition to the huge lunch she brought to work. To silence her guilt, she adopted a Scarlett O’Hara attitude.

“I knew I was eating too much, but I would always tell myself that I would start watching what I was eating tomorrow. I mean, I was already fat, was one more day going to hurt? So I would be ‘good’ for a day or two and then blow it for a week or two.” It was a vicious cycle that left Kymm even further isolated from her family and social circle. “Food affected every aspect of my life,” she said. “It became all-encompassing.”
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Breakfast: Nothing

Lunch: 6-inch Subway tuna sandwich, bag of Sun chips, cookie and a drink

Dinner: 2 cups pasta, 1 cup sauce, 2 slices bread, 5 oz. ground turkey, small vegetable and a drink

Snacks: Prepackaged baked goods, chips, pretzels, candy
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Kymm suffered both physically and emotionally from the burden of her weight. Apart from the daily obstacles – the heavy panting, achy back, and so on – she was in constant pain from the pressure weighing down on her left foot, which stiffened frequently while walking. Her orthopedic surgeon told her that if she failed to lose a substantial amount of weight, she could look forward to an invasive foot surgery.

But the worst aspect for Kymm was emotional. She hated the feeling that she was wasting her life, that she neglected to fervently pursue her goals.

Determined to stop wasting precious time, Kymm enrolled in school to pursue a degree in theater arts. But despite her step forward, her problems followed. A year into the program, it dawned on her that she was relatively unknown in her class, primarily because she lacked the self-confidence and drive to give it her all. She had great grades, but few knew her name. And it could all be traced back to her weight, and how people treated her because of her appearance.

“I once held a school door open for two people to pass through in front of me; they walked through and let the next set of doors close on me,” Kymm recalled. “I realized I wasn’t apparent to them. I was virtually invisible, not because of malice, but rather a lack of thought. I wasn’t spending much thought on myself, so why should they?”

Tired and frustrated, Kymm knew she needed to make a drastic change to reclaim her life. The solution came when she was least expecting it, during her TV and snack ritual:“While watching television as I was eating pizza and a cinnamon roll, an L.A. Weight Loss commercial came on and it brought me to tears. The woman in the commercial was so happy and I was so unhappy.”

Kymm called right away, drove to the center and immediately signed up. With encouragement from friends and family, she began working toward her ultimate goal.
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When Kymm stepped on the L.A. Weight Loss scale, she was mortified to read the number: 308 pounds. But within just the first three days, she lost 6 pounds. “I was hooked,” Kymm said of her early success. “Every week from there on I was losing a minimum of 2 pounds.”

Once Kymm got into the rhythm of restricting her diet to healthy foods, she saw weight loss completely differently – as freeing. She met with her counselors privately three times a week to assess her daily intake and monitor her exercise routine, which she started out by alternating between one to two miles of walking almost every day. After just a few months, Kymm increased her regimen to walking in addition to working out on the elliptical machine every day – which helped her lose 50 pounds. The payoff was twofold: she felt better, and she was finally cast in her first leading role.

She continued increasing and varying her exercise regime in conjunction with watching her diet, and the weight came off at “an amazingly quick rate.” With her mother’s motto of “everything you do is a choice,\" Kymm committed herself to planning out her meals in a food journal and checking them off each day. After 14 months, Kymm lost a total of 144 pounds and now weighs in at 164.

“I will not be tormented anymore by scales and books that say I’m barely good enough,” Kymm said of her new body. “I’m focusing now on how I feel. And I feel both physically and mentally strong.”
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Breakfast: 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup soy milk (sprinkled with cinnamon), 3/4 cup blueberries, 1 oz. raw almonds

Lunch: 2 cups spinach or spring lettuce, 1 cup vegetables, 3/4 cup lentils, 1 oz. olive oil, 1 oz. pomegranate balsamic vinegar

Dinner: 1/2 spaghetti squash, 1/4 grilled onion (diced),1/2 cup frozen spinach,1/2 cup spaghetti sauce, 1 tablespoon tofu cream cheese (to make sauce creamy), 2 slices whole-grain bread

Snacks: Green tea, 1/2 cup soy milk, 2 slices brown rice toast with 1 tablespoon almond butter, 1 banana
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Nearly a year after losing the weight, Kymm noticed significant changes in her life and habits. With a “we are what we eat” mentality, she took it upon herself to become a vegetarian and now generally eats organic foods. She kicked her lifelong dependence on junk food and now turns to plant-based proteins and vegetables for meals.

“I now view food as a way of feeding my body what it needs, not just what my appetite wants,” she said. “When I make good choices, I feel energetic, focused, and healthy.”

In addition to her health, Kymm also credits more solid self-confidence to her new lifestyle. No longer is she ignored or passed over; she is now more willing to put herself out there and express her thoughts or opinions. People treat her differently, and she’s seen a vast improvement in both her friendships and family relationships.

“Now that I treat myself better, I am able to be the friend that I so desperately needed, and I find that others are willing to be there also. I feel much better about myself. I love having a strong, healthy body.”

More important, Kymm is thankful for a second chance. She knows what can happen to those who don’t take responsibility for their lives, and now she does all she can to manage the uncontrollable habits she once gave in to. “We are where we are because we made a choice or a choice was made for us, but we stay where we are because we choose to stay,” Kymm said. “Little choices and changes take longer, but they do add up. Even indecision is a choice.”

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“Sometimes it felt like I was invisible,” said Lisa Griffis, a 49-year-old newspaper deputy design director from Lakewood, Ohio. “I will never forget what I my life used to be like.”

Having tipped the scales at over nine pounds at birth, Lisa was constantly reminded by family members of her early chubbiness. Her parents and siblings all had weight issues and most meals at home consisted of mayonnaise, sour cream or Cool Whip. “The containers had more nutrition than the actual food,” Lisa said of her family’s diet, which helped her climb from a chubby childhood to an obese adulthood, eventually hitting 340 pounds.

Despite her rather unhealthy upbringing, Lisa has fond memories of her home, especially since it served as a safe haven from the cruel taunts and teasing from her school peers. Often called “fatso” or “lard-butt,” she struggled with not only her weight, but with fragile self-confidence. In an effort to woo friends, she set herself apart as the “funny fat friend,” hoping a loud personality would compensate for her appearance. But her insecurities and weight-related humiliation affected her “every moment of the day.”

Lisa recalls one specifically hurtful incident that still remains with her to this day. One Halloween, as she walked her dog, kids in a car sped by to throw eggs at her and yell “fat ass” out the window. The eggs left temporary bruises — but the remarks left marks for years to come.

It took nearly four decades for Lisa to finally overcome her weight issues and face the position she had put herself in. Fed up with letting her weight command her behavior, she was determined to carve a new, healthier life for herself.

“My role was to be the fattest friend and family member,” she said of the first chapter of her life. “As I lost the weight I realized that my former weight made them feel better about themselves, that at least they weren’t as fat as I was.”
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Insecure and socially anxious, Lisa ate to combat the stress and loneliness in her life. But by eating “too much of everything,” Lisa just dug herself into a bigger, darker hole. She ate to make herself “feel better,” but it was a vicious cycle that ultimately only made her feel worse.

“I couldn’t control what was going on so I overate,” she said. “I never stopped until the container was empty.”

Emotionally, Lisa felt defeated. She considered herself a hopeless cause, with little encouragement from her friends of family.
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On weekends, Lisa would often visit her favorite bakeries and eateries to gather a “feast” to enjoy in the privacy of her “non-judgmental home.” Her snacks consisted of high-calorie, sugary candy bars and vending machine purchases. At night, to make up for whatever was eating her inside, she would gorge on a dozen chocolate chip cookies.

Although concerned, Lisa let decades pass without taking action to limit her weight from affecting her relationships. “I didn’t date for years,” she said of her rather lonesome 20s. “[And even though] I traveled and tried to not let it hold me back, I was fooling myself.”
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Breakfast: Three cups of Smart Start cereal with milk

Morning snack: Bag of chips

Lunch: Chicken salad sandwich and macaroni salad

Afternoon snacks: Chocolate bars, cookies and a six-pack of chocolate bars

Dinner: KFC three-piece dinner
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Apart from the physical setbacks that her weight caused, Lisa suffered most emotionally. Years of ignoring her health finally escalated to a bitter, hardened hopelessness. “Giving up on my problem because it seemed insurmountable felt like I was giving up on myself,” Lisa said.

Five years ago this week, Lisa finally had her “a-ha” moment, when she realized she couldn’t continue living with the anxiety, insecurity and despair that resulted from her obesity. While staring at a group photo of herself with college friends at a reunion, she felt like she was looking at a picture of a stranger. At 340 pounds, she simply didn’t recognize herself.

“I had employed my usual trick of hiding behind people to cover up just how large I had become,” Lisa said. “But I realized that at 340 pounds, I couldn't ignore the words ‘morbidly obese’ any longer. I was too young to die.”

That day, she promised to change her life, so that she could actually live it. She knew she had to drastically change her habits and re-teach herself how to eat and exercise.

“I started approaching my problem head-on — to figure out how I could live with food in a healthy way,\" she said. With that promise, Lisa read a dozen books on health and quickly assembled a gym in her basement with common inexpensive tools, like an exercise ball, weights, and workout DVDs. “It felt great to take charge of my life,” she said.
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With the motto “nothing tastes as good as being thin,” Lisa began limiting her food choices to home-cooked meals, since she knew she lacked control in restaurants. Committed to finding a new way to eat, Lisa learned love of cooking and discovering new ways to find healthier, leaner alternatives for favorite recipes. “Now instead of being asked to bring my famous cheesecakes to family gatherings, I bring fabulous salads filled with healthy ingredients like pomegranate seeds and a wide assortment of vegetables.”

She also deserted her sedentary lifestyle and purchased her first pair of walking shoes, which now get good use with her mile-long walks. She also swims daily and rides her bike. Today, she works out nearly three hours a day, not because she even needs to, but because she “loves” being active.

Within the first two months, she lost an astounding 20 pounds and it took only 18 months to lose the first 100. In two-and-a-half years, she shed a total of 177 pounds and has maintained her weight of 160 pounds since then. Although she still experiences some setbacks, including stress-eating, she’s better able to recognize her bad behavior before it consumes her day. “I try to take a minute to breathe and relax instead of reaching for food,” she said.

Lisa credits three books for jump-starting her weight loss:


Eat, Cheat and Melt the Fat Away by Suzanne Somers: “I lost my first 100 pounds using her plan as a guide to learn what types of food I should be eating and in what combination,” Lisa said.

Total Body Makeover by Bob Greene: “He taught me that losing weight has just as much to do with your mind as it does with your body.”

The 3-Hour Diet by Jorge Cruise: “This plan brought taught me that food is fuel for your body and that you need to fashion your eating plan so that your body runs efficiently.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'After' daily intake","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Nightly%20News/Personal/Raphael/Lisa_a4.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "410", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Breakfast: One cup of pumpkin–and-walnut oatmeal and two hard-boiled eggs

Lunch: Two cups of home-made chili with vegetables and ground turkey

Dinner: Five ounces of baked chicken with steamed vegetables

Snacks: Apple and a small handful of almonds or walnuts
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","New outlook","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Nightly%20News/Personal/Raphael/Lisa_a2.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "340", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Today, Lisa now understands that food is not merely compensation for a bad day or the answer to stress. She’s often still temped to overeat, but she has gained enough tools to combat her demons. “I am pretty good about sticking to this new way of living, but on a hot summer’s night I still want ice cream,” she said. “Now I buy a small portion and enjoy every bite of it and then make sure that the next day I step up my workout to compensate for it.”

Lisa’s new habits have completely transformed her view of herself and restored her confidence. She is no longer a victim of society’s intolerance of the obese. “I can walk down the street now and know that someone isn’t going yell out of car that I have a fat ass,” she said. “I can go to the grocery store now and put anything in my cart without anyone judging me for putting a pint of ice cream in my cart.”

She not only feels and moves better, but is comfortable tackling new goals and overcoming her obstacles, specifically in relationships and intimacy. She recently started seriously dating for the first time in her life, and feels that “conquering a mountain a fat” allows her to pursue anything she desires. “I used to understand chocolate chip cookies better than I did men, but now I am at least trying throw my hat into the dating pool.”

Lisa primarily credits her success to taking the time to properly change not only her diet, but her lifestyle. It wasn’t an overnight transformation, but simple yet difficult baby steps. “People all the time ask me how I accomplished the feat of overcoming obesity and tell them, ‘put down the fork and move your butt.’ If I can do it, anyone can”

For more information on Lisa’s weight loss journey and to find how Joy Bauer is helping her lose the last 20 pounds, visit www.lisagriffis.com.
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Arianna Chavez","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/JFC_Arianna_b4_FIRST.hmedium.jpg","","", "sub", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "364", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

\"I had become comfortable with my obesity,\" confessed Arianna Chavez, a 30-year-old college adviser from San Antonia, Tex. \"I wouldn't talk about it or think about it.\"

A self-described \"creature of habit,\" Arianna became complacent, conceding that she would have to endure the rest of her life with obesity. Although she had a rather average childhood, she pinpoints her teenage years — when she stopped participating in sports — as the primary reason she began gaining weight. Her body did not adjust well to an inactive schedule.

The bigger Arianna got, the more she ate, and the more she assumed it was a hopeless cause. She continued \"picking up more and more pounds every year\" in college until she reached as astounding weight — 307 pounds. She soon became remarkably insecure and uncomfortable about her appearance. Despite her ability to easily socialize, Arianna said she was always considered the \"outgoing chubby girl\" who made friends easily but rarely dated.

\"I wanted to find love, but didn't expect it to ever happen. I was very fortunate to have a large network of friends who never judged me on my size, but despite their acceptance, I was still unhappy.\"

Apart from the physical hardships of her weight — the shortness of breath, achy feet, etc — Arianna felt limited from activities, outings and the interests of her peers. She couldn't wear the cute, trendy clothes designed for people her age. Instead, she purchased her wardrobe at \"old lady shops,\" opting for frumpy, large clothing that could hide her figure. She couldn't fit into restaurant booths or close an airplane seat buckle — all inconvenient, embarrassing situations that Arianna sheepishly accepted as the years passed.

\"I was criticized for my behaviors, but it never made me stop. I was convinced this was just the way it was, \"she said. \"[I had] this feeling that this was my life and it was never going to change,\" she said.
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Arianna picked up a lot of her poor eating habits from her family, which put a heavy emphasis on high-calorie foods and large feasts. Like many of her family members, she lacked portion control. At gatherings, a \"little bit of this\" and a \"little bit of that\" became two or three platefuls.

\"Coming from a large — literally and figuratively — Latino family, food is always at the center of every event,\" Arianna said. \"From traditional Tex-Mex cuisine to Texas barbeque, there was always an overabundance of food.\"

Arianna's daily diet mostly consisted of sugary, fatty snacks like chips, cookies and fries or fast-food meals. With a busy work schedule, she spent most meals \"on the road,\" eating a wide range of unhealthy foods in her car, without even thinking about her caloric intake:

\"I didn't have time to think about what I was eating. I didn't have time to stop and consider the negative effects it was having on my body.\""; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Eating habits","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/JFC_Arianna_b3.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "407", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Arianna purchased most meals through a fast-food window. While still adjusting to a hectic work schedule, she preferred to buy instead of prepare her food — and fast-food eateries seemed like a simple, easy alternative. She didn't have the time or energy to cook her own meals. The problem was that she usually ordered the unhealthiest items, and wouldn't think twice about ordering the largest portions.

\"I pretty much knew every menu at every fast-food restaurant within a five-mile radius of my home,\" Arianna said of her former lifestyle. \"I would eat so much and so fast, I would finish my meals in the car before I even got home. And then sometimes I found myself turning around for more.\"
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'Before' daily intake","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/JFC_Arianna_b2.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "412", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Breakfast: None

Lunch: Double cheeseburger, large order of french fries and a 32-oz. soda

Dinner: Half a pizza pie

Snacks: Multiple bags of chips, pints of ice cream, whole bags of popcorn, king-size candy bars and cookies.
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","The turning point","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/JFC_Arianna_b1.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "405", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Although Arianna had been unhappy for years and her obesity affected her career — she physically couldn't keep up with her active students — it wasn't until a medical problem presented itself that she decided to take action. After years of poor nutrition, both of Arianna's parents had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which prompted her to take a long, hard look at where her life was heading.

\"I knew this was an inevitable scenario for me if I did not decide to change my life — and change it fast,\" she said.

At the time, Arianna's cousin (and roommate) had lost a significant amount of weight after joining her local LA Weight Loss. Her amazing transformation inspired Arianna:

\"Here was an already beautiful woman made even more beautiful by deciding to change her eating lifestyle and it was really paying off. I was convinced that as long as I was ready and able to make the same commitment, there was no reason it wouldn't work for me as well. I thought, 'I can do that. I also want to look cute, become more active and have a new lease on life.' \"

Soon thereafter, Arianna joined her cousin in attending counseling and nutrition sessions with her at LA Weight Loss and together, they motivated one another to exercise and cut out unhealthy foods. \"We were losing weight and working towards being healthier and happier women,\" Arianna said of the first few months. \"My parents couldn't be more proud.\"
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Losing the weight","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/JFC_Arianna_a2.vlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "358", "239", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

\"The first step was to throw out any notions of it being easy or simple,\" Arianna said of her decision to completely change her outlook on food and exercise. \"Nothing really important ever is.\"

Arianna began by forfeiting her dependence on drive-thru and high-calorie, sugary snacks. She took upon herself to research everything she put inside her mouth, and decided to focus on buying more healthy proteins and consuming a healthy intake of fiber and calcium

With her newly revamped diet and a casual workout regimen of light calisthenics at LA Weight Loss, Arianna lost the first seven pounds within one week. Within the first few weeks, she already noticed a significant change in her energy and the way her clothes fit — such early success propelled her to stick to her goal. She repeatedly told herself it was all worth the effort because it she would be a healthier, happier person because of it — and most importantly, that she would never have to accept being obese ever again.

Once she lost 100 pounds, she took up walking and jogging and today, she jogs one to two times a week and plays tennis every Saturday. Whenever she reached a plateau, her LA Weight Loss counselor would advise switching up meal plans, such as eating more in the afternoon as opposed to later in the evening, or avoiding certain foods like red meat.

Arianna lost a total of 127 pounds and now weighs in at 180. \"I am a completely different person on the outside and more importantly a more informed person on the inside,\" she said. \"I feel like a new woman!\"
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'After daily intake","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "297", "198", "", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Breakfast: Glass of skim milk, 1 tbs. of reduced-fat peanut butter on several slices of light bread

Lunch: 4 oz. chicken breast tenders with a large salad

Dinner: 4 oz. ground turkey meat with a cup of steamed broccoli glazed with light teriyaki sauce

Snacks: Two L.A. Lite bars, an apple, a banana, graham crackers and sugar-free Jell-O
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","New outlook","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/JFC_Arianna_a1.vlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "358", "239", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Arianna no longer suffers from food addiction. Now, she craves foods like ground turkey and broccoli. Nutrition is now a top priority in her daily schedule. \"Never again will I look at a double cheeseburger and think that it is something I need,\" Arianna said of her newfound control, which allows her to easily ignore doughnuts in her office. \"Eating healthy is now my addiction.\"

Arianna learned that she doesn't have to be passive when something’s ailing in her life; she possesses the power and ability to change anything she wants. She knows that living an active lifestyle far outweighs the short-lived pleasure of eating. And she's happier and healthier than she has ever been.

\"My health is extremely important to me; definitely more important than a second helping of pie or a large slice of birthday cake.\"

Arianna also improved her relationships, both socially and romantically. In fact, she says she finally found the love of her life. By asserting herself and overcoming her insecurities, she was able to let someone in her life — someone who constantly tells her how beautiful she is. And as for old friends and acquaintances, they can hardly believe it's the same person.

\"It's fun when I run into people who can hardly believe it's me or who don't even recognize me. You can't imagine what a boost that gives me and what motivation I have to keep losing and never give up.\"
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Leah Nichols","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/Nichols_B1.vmedium.jpg","","", "sub", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "298", "148", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

“Too much drinking, eating out and making bad decisions,” 25-year-old Leah Nichols said of the reasons behind her gradual weight gain. “Food became a comfort and a habit.”

The speech pathologist from Indianapolis, Ind., recalls a happy, active childhood filled with sports such as soccer, volleyball and cheerleading. She never encountered any issues with food or her weight. When she left home for school, however, she found herself unable to control her eating habits, and with no one to “answer to,” she began overeating at nearly every meal. She fell into the common trend of college dorm eating habits – late nights filled with high-calorie alcoholic drinks, fast-food meals and not enough exercise. She gained the typical \"freshman 15\" and then some, packing on more pounds with each year until she lost sight of how much she had truly gained.

Over time, the pretty and outgoing teen reached 260 pounds and started to lose her self-confidence; she hated her appearance and would often criticize her body in comparison to svelte friends. “All my sorority sisters were thin and my siblings were very fit as well,” Leah said. “I could never share clothes with friends and I hated the way I looked when we would go out.”

Socially, Leah suffered. At events or parties, Leah crouched in the corner or hid her body behind a table. She couldn’t fully enjoy herself because she feared friends, love interests and strangers viewed her as “the fat one,” even though rationally she knew she was ultra-sensitive about her appearance. Leah remembers one particularly hurtful experience at a football game, when a man passing by exclaimed \"God, look out for fatty!\" Although Leah’s friends were readily willing to defend her, she preferred to slink away from confrontation – she hated drawing unwanted attention to her size.

It all took a great toll on her personal relationships and social network. The fear of being judged by her weight held her back from fully opening up to people, especially in romantic relationships, and she felt she was losing her true personality. She didn’t go out often, tending to spend most nights at home, and became a pro at hiding her unhappiness from others.

“I was unwilling to meet new people for fear of rejection,” she said. “It was very hard to constantly see my friends dating and being single. I thought ‘Who would want me?’ I did not feel worthy of a serious committed relationship with a good person.”
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Leah spent her college years constantly “looking forward” to meals, as if they were each social events. While juggling a hectic, unorganized school life, Leah would turn to fast-food restaurants on her way to classes, which seemed easier than cooking. “Whenever I went grocery shopping, I very rarely ate what I bought and chose to get fast food instead – it just sounded better and quicker than cooking,” she said. “I indulged in a lot of late-night eating, like Taco Bell, consuming almost a whole extra meal for that day.”"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Eating habits","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/Nichols_b4.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "423", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "
Leah would generally consume so much food that her stomach ached. She preferred several large, high-calorie meals – from McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s four to five times a week – instead of grazing throughout the day. "; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'Before' daily intake","","","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "110", "147", "", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "
Breakfast: Nothing

Lunch: Fast-food meal of chicken fingers, fries, fried chicken sandwich, mashed potatoes and macaroni with cheese

Dinner: Fast food meal, slices of pizza

Snacks: Chips, Taco Bell
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","The turning point","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/Nichols_b3_workout.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "364", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Although Leah’s parents occasionally urged her to consider taking a healthier approach to eating, Leah didn’t feel motivated to change until she had finished her coursework and entered the work force. Upon joining the “real world” at age 24, Leah suddenly felt far more insecure about her future.

“All I could see was someone who had a lot going for herself: good career to come, good family, good friends, but I wasn’t happy,” she said. “When I began thinking about why I was unhappy it all came back to my weight. I wasn’t myself anymore because of the weight gain; I was single because I was uncomfortable with myself; I was unhealthy because of my weight.”

For the first time in years, Leah stepped on a scale – and cried when she saw the number: 260 pounds. She finally realized the extent of her obesity – that she was in denial for the duration of her college years. She knew a difficult challenge lay ahead of her, but for once, she felt motivated to drastically change her poor eating habits and self-image.

With a strong support system of friends and family members, Leah joined a gym and concentrated on regaining her health. “I felt so lost and so far behind that it was sometimes painful to go to the gym,” she said of the first few months. “It was hard not to compare myself to others but I tried as hard as I could and eventually began focusing on myself and not others... I finally put myself first no matter how hard it was going to be.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Losing the weight","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/Nicols_a1.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "364", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

When Leah joined a gym, the staff conducted a body assessment which concluded that her body was roughly that of a woman at 33, nearly a decade older than her current age. “It really hit me how unhealthy I had become,” Leah said. “This served as added motivation to lose the weight.”

Leah began by chronicling her daily caloric intake on sparkpeople.com, a free food diary Web site, and attempted to stay within a range of 1,500-1,700 calories and 30 fat grams per day. She also started a light, 30-minute cardio three times a week, focusing on the elliptical machine, treadmill or stair stepper, and then slowly adding light weight training.

“I always told myself that this wasn’t going to be easy and it was going to take a long time to lose and keep the weight off,” Leah said of her weight lost philosophy, which left room for mistakes and the occasional slip-up. “If there were days that I tripped up or didn’t work out I knew I just had to turn it around the next day and keep going, this was a complete lifestyle change, not a diet.”

After losing approximately 50 pounds, Leah opted for a personal trainer two to three times a week to develop new ideas to tone her body. She increased her cardio workouts to 45-60 minutes four times a week, and then took up fitness classes like yoga, Pilates and cycling. If she felt herself hitting a plateau, she would make small adjustments in her diet, like lowering the caloric intake (but never less than 1,200 calories) and increasing the amount of protein she consumed. “It was frustrating to hit those plateaus, but I knew that it would eventually break so I couldn’t let myself get distracted or discouraged,” she said.

Now, after losing 110 pounds, Leah competes in sprint triathlons which consist of 500 meter swims in open water, 10 mile bike races and 5k runs. “I just kept working out and pushed through and this paid off. Looking at old photos and recalling past experience while being overweight helped motivate me through the rough times.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'After' daily intake","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "364", "", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Breakfast: Yogurt topped with granola, a cup of cereal, fruit, Jimmy Dean light breakfast sandwich

Lunch: Salad with grilled chicken, or a Lean Cuisine meal

Dinner: Four ounces of protein (chicken, turkey or fish) and steamed vegetables (broccoli, asparagus and green beans)

Snacks: Cottage cheese, granola bars and 100-calorie snack packs
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","New food outlook","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/Nichols_a2.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "364", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Today, at 145 pounds, Leah’s complete outlook has changed. While she still enjoys meals, they no longer overshadow her entire day. In fact, whenever Leah does feel motivated to consume food, it’s in a constructive and healthy way: As a new nutrition junkie, she took up the hobby of finding healthy, clever alternatives for unhealthy recipes. “I now know how many calories are in many foods and have become good at estimating calories in a meal,” she said of her new abilities. “I carry nutritional information concerning food items at chain restaurants in my purse so I am prepared to make smart choices.”

By accomplishing her weight-loss goals, Leah has regained self-respect, self-worth and her personality. After years of withdrawing from society, she finally feels comfortable opening up to others and no longer frets about friends judging her by her appearance.

“I have gained a confidence in myself I don’t think I've ever had,” she said. “Not only confidence in my appearance but confidence in my beliefs, motivations in life and hopes and aspirations for my future that were hidden because of fear of rejection or judgment.

I feel lucky to have been able to lose the weight and hope that I can help inspire others to do the same... It is possible to do this on your own, without spending tons of money, without hiring a personal trainer, without using a special diet, all of it is possible on your own.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Sheri Harkness","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo/_new/080905-Joy-Fit-07.vmedium.jpg","","", "sub", "", "", "", "left", "", "Sheri Harkness", "290", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

“I grew up with the ‘eat everything on your plate or there will be no dessert’ mentality,” said Sheri Harkness of Stroudsburg, Pa. The 39-year-old domestic relations specialist recalls a happy, active childhood, but one filled with “giant food extravaganzas” and hearty meals of high-calorie, fatty foods. From an early age, she was taught to enjoy a large amount of food without ever considering the nutritional intake. Most things seemed to revolve around food in her home, and it was regarded as a constant source of joy and excitement. Sheri’s family used food for celebrations or to calm sad occasions, and it was present during most of her mother-daughter bonding sessions.

“We would begin [weekends] with an enormous breakfast that consisted of pancakes, homemade home fries, toast or biscuits, bacon and sausage and fried eggs — all generously topped with butter, syrup or catsup,” Sheri said. “For dinner, we would barbeque steaks with French fries while my mom would be making homemade ice cream for dessert.”

As a kid with a penchant for sports and physical activities, Sheri’s hearty appetite didn’t severely affect her size, but as she grew into a teenager, she began to feel the effects of her diet. Then, at age 16, when her parents divorced, Sheri’s eating habits spiraled out of control. Confused and emotionally distraught, she sought solace in food, often gorging on snacks and meals to cope with her family’s changing situation: “Food became more comforting than ever,” Sheri said. “It was always there for me when people weren’t. It made me feel good for the moment.”

But as much as Sheri ate to console herself, she knew it ultimately didn’t solve the issues at hand or make her any happier. It was a fleeting, shallow comfort. “One of the problems I have found with being overweight is that you can't really hide your pain. It’s evident in your appearance.”

Sheri constantly struggled with her appearance and how strangers viewed her. Oftentimes, Sheri said, outsiders saw her as a “failure” incapable of controlling herself or would give an occasional look of disgust or disapproval. In grocery stores, she could feel strangers peering into her cart, making mental notes of what she purchased. People seemed to be less considerate, at times even rude -- whether it was not letting her go ahead in line, or not being as friendly as they should. Even her own family members lacked sensitivity.

“I remember my grandmother making a comment on one occasion. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor and began to get up and she said, ‘Wow, you get up pretty quick for a fat girl!’ I never really considered myself as fat, so it was surprising to hear that.”

Sheri felt that people dismissed what she had to say or doubted her capabilities, and that in response, her personality had to be grandiose and overbearing to be noticed. “I was really being someone I was not because of my weight. I wasn’t myself. I gradually became a person I did not recognize, not only physically but emotionally, mentally and spiritually as well.”
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Sheri’s daily food consumption gradually and severely increased over the years. As a teenager, her issue was not necessarily quantity as much as the quality of the food she ate — her diet consisted of fast-food meals, candy bars, sweets and any high-calorie snack she desired.

“I would have no regard for the things that I ate,” Sheri said. “I had youth and a faster metabolism on my side so the weight gain was pretty gradual.”

The situation escalated when she became an adult and started a family. After giving birth to two boys, Sheri often found herself gorging on fast food meals in response to stress at home. Whether running around to shuttle her children from one place to another or hurrying to finish housework, she opted for quick, unhealthy foods. But even when she did have time for herself, she noticed her choices hardly changed. She ate meals on the couch in front of the television, then felt tired and cranky afterward because the food had little nutritional value.

“I loved being home with my boys and it proved to be a wonderful bonding experience for all of us that I would never take back. But looking back on that time in my life I kick myself. I know now that I could have been a better mother if I had been healthier. I felt as though I was getting through the precious things to look forward to my eating rather than living for precious moments first.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'Before' daily intake","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo/_new/080905-Joy-Fit-08.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "Sheri Harkness", "273", "396", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Breakfast: Nothing

Lunch: Burger with fries, large soda

Dinner: Four pieces of pizza, baked potato, or a supersized fast-food meal of a double quarter pounder with cheese with french fries

Snacks: Cake, ice cream, candy bars, popcorn with extra butter, two liters of soda
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For Sheri, the most painful aspect was feeling like an embarrassment to her kids. Nothing hurt her more than thinking her own children were possibly humiliated by their “fat mom.” Although she never disclosed her fear, it was a thought that often haunted her. Instead of taking action, she generally just ate more to ease the pain.

But in March of 2001, after having lost her mother to pancreatic cancer, Sheri found herself resorting to her old coping mechanisms. She felt herself going “deeper and deeper” into food addiction and self-loathing, and within six years, she grew to over 200 pounds. In the spring of 2007, during a routine physical with her doctor, Sheri was shocked to learn she was bigger and less healthy than she assumed.

“My physician told me that my blood pressure was high and that I weighed 282 pounds. I was only 38 years old, but being spoken to like I was 68. Believe it or not, I convinced myself at that time that I should be so grateful that I wasn’t 300 pounds.”

After realizing the extent of her habits, Sheri slowly but surely made the commitment to change — for her self-esteem, but also for her family. “It was more of a subtle dimmer switch that gradually brightened with each passing day,” she said. “I always believed that the definition of being a good mother was putting my family before myself. If I do not take care of myself physically and emotionally it is impossible to be there for my kids on any level.”
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At first, Sheri kept her intentions to herself. If she was unable to achieve her goals, she didn’t want to feel like a failure to anyone but herself. She quietly joined her local YMCA, where at first she felt nervous and overwhelmed by her surroundings:

“I walked into the cardio suite to see toned, tight, young bodies running on treadmills and Stairmasters,” Sheri recalled. “I knew they were laughing at me with their eyes, but I also knew if I could get through that first day I would not fail.”

With careful guidance from her sister, a fitness trainer, Sheri began walking on a treadmill for 15 minutes at 3.1 miles per hour, three days a week. Although winded and exhausted during the first three months, Sheri did not give up. Gradually, she worked her way up to 3.6 miles per hour for 20 minutes, then started weight training three days a week.

As for her new diet, Sheri ate as she pleased, but cut back on portions and eliminated soda from her daily routine. “I did not want to drastically change my diet in the beginning because I didn’t want my body to become used to that, therefore creating a possible early plateau,” she said. “I really used common sense with regards to what I ate.”

After the first six months, Sheri began viewing food more as fuel than a guilty pleasure and incorporated fruits and vegetables with lean meats and fish. By sticking to a better diet and visiting the gym on a regular basis, Sheri lost 127 pounds. Today, at 155 pounds and a size 4, she participates in 5K runs and makes time for an hour of cardio and an hour of weight training four to five days a week.
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Breakfast: Banana, oatmeal or a granola bar

Lunch: Chicken with rice and steamed vegetables or grilled chicken salad with dressing on the side.

Dinner: Chicken or salmon salad

Snacks: Power bar, granola, flax cereal, trail mix, cottage cheese with fruit
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For Sheri, it was a slow and steady race to reach her goal. “I was never in a hurry to lose weight and have never been a fan of the old adage, ‘I have to lose 20 pounds to get into my wedding dress.’ My focus was on overall health and well-being and with that the weight loss naturally followed.”

She found that sticking to a daily mantra helped her stay on track. Whenever she felt she ate too much or cheated on her diet, she repeated one line: “I’m OK with that.” That was and continues to be her philosophy to this day. If she neglects her workout or indulges a weakness, she simply accepts the mistake without beating herself up. “I believe that we need to be kind to ourselves,” Sheri said. “We are human after all and will fail from time to time.”

While she still looks forward to eating, it no longer dominates her thoughts. Overcoming her food urges was, by far, the most challenging aspect of her weight-loss journey. It took months for Sheri to train herself to think differently about her needs and how to handle her emotional dependence on food.

“When I was bigger, I can honestly say that I don’t remember ever experiencing true hunger. I just always wanted to eat food because I loved the taste of it and would eat to excess because of that as well as many emotional reasons.”

Today, Sheri feels she has finally found the person she was meant to be. Her sense of self-worth has far surpassed her expectations, and she feels confident in achieving any goal she wishes to pursue. “The bottom line is that it can be done if you make it a priority,” she said. “But I am also forever mindful that one does not travel a journey of this magnitude alone. I have such a wonderful support system in my friends and family, and this is what has helped me get to where I am today. At this point, I feel there is no goal that is out of my reach.”

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“I’ve battled my weight ever since I could remember,” confesses Bianca Oros, a 24-year-old graduate student from La Habra, Calif. “I was always aware of the fact that I was the chubbier one while my older sister was the skinny one.\"

Looking back at her challenging childhood, the newest member of the Joy Fit Club realizes that she wasn’t a terribly heavy youngster. Compared to the kind of childhood obesity common today, she was actually fairly normal – just a bit chubbier and taller than her peers. But her insecurities made her acutely aware of the difference, and over the years, she put on more pounds as the social pressures became more intense.

“I would be uncomfortable even around my own friends when it came to changing in front of each other or trying on bathing suits,” Bianca said. “I was always the girl who felt the need to be funny in order to be accepted, but underneath the jokes and sarcasm was a girl who truly wanted to feel like she belonged.”

During her youth Bianca enjoyed sports and physical activities, but she abandoned them when she reached her teens; along with her insatiable sweet tooth, maturing had a big impact on her body. By the time she reached high school, she’d gained a noticeable amount of weight and felt “miserable” about her uncontrollable eating habits. She knew she led an unhealthy lifestyle, but felt powerless to change. Bianca’s frustration was exacerbated by her sister’s rapid metabolism, which let her eat as much as she wanted without repercussions. Bianca, on the other hand, felt that if she even consumed just one brownie, she could see “where it had made its home on [my] thighs the very next day.”

Although the two sisters were close, their vastly different bodies caused bitter rivalry at times. “I remember at one point during high school when my sister and I had a fight and she brought up my size,” Bianca said. “I hated speaking to anyone about my weight, and when she flippantly told me to get my stomach stapled, I remember feeling such shock and anger. I cried that night for a very long time, hurt that my sister would ever say that, but not understanding that she was honestly thinking of a way to help me.”
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Although generally a happy child, Bianca used food as an emotional crutch; she ate to calm her anxiety, ease her worries and solve her boredom. A professed lover of carbs, she would eat “unlimited amounts,” to the point where she would sneak food to her room to avoid her family’s constant protests. Her addiction to unhealthy, high-calorie snacks – specifically muffins, doughnuts and chips – evolved into a late-night secret-snacking habit that left her feeling disgusted and out of control.

“I did this for a long time, hiding my secret from others, but this was hard to do when I was obviously gaining weight,” Bianca summed up her teen years. “My mother was constantly worrying about my weight, and although I knew she was completely right, I was far too stubborn and out of control to listen to her advice.”
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Bianca’s biggest problem was portion control. Whether she ate broccoli or pastries, her portions were always abnormally large. She simply never bothered to consider how much she consumed on a daily basis.

“I remember being young, around the age of 10, and I wanted to eat two hot dogs instead of one,” Bianca recalled. “My mother told me that one hot dog was enough, but I remember being very upset – telling her that I was literally starving.”

Bianca pinpoints her weight escalation to when she began earning money in high school. Employed and in control of her pocket change, Bianca spent her hard-earned money on her favorite thing: carbs. She ate “countless” mini pizzas and muffins outside her home, then came back and ate an entire sit-down meal with her family. Bianca’s sneaking habits – and the insecurities that accompanied them – continued through high school and followed her into college.
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Breakfast: Cereal with milk at home, two pastries, sugary coffee drink

Lunch: Ham or turkey sandwich with margarine and cheese, candy, chips, pudding or a pastry

Dinner: Large portion of chicken or fish, potatoes, rice, salad with ranch dressing, bread

Snacks: Muffins, croissants, sweet breads, chips, ice cream, candy
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Years of suffering from the physical and emotional setbacks of her weight left Bianca utterly exhausted. At 282 pounds, she was tired of waiting for her “life to begin.” She kept believing her eating was uncontrollable, a hurdle she couldn’t overcome.

It was not how she had envisioned her 20s. Although she graduated college proud of her academic and scholastic achievements, Bianca was disappointed in her inability to live a healthy, normal lifestyle. Years of gorging on snacks and hiding her late-night food binges took their toll. More than anything, she felt her weight held her back from pursuing her career goal: broadcast journalism. In her professional life as well as her dating life, she considered herself too heavy for anyone to take seriously.

“I was aware of the stipulations that were placed on TV reporters about their looks and weight, but I somehow hoped that my charm and personality would camouflage the fact that I was fat,” she said. “I felt like I was going nowhere, that my weight was holding me back... It was a feeling of hopelessness.”

Fed up and frustrated, Bianca finally felt motivated to take the first step forward after a former boss who’d had a positive experience with Weight Watchers encouraged her to join. Although she was apprehensive at first, support from her family and friends kept Bianca sticking to Weight Watchers: After every weekly weigh-in, they’d call to ask how much she lost and cheer her on for the next meeting. “Accountability with family, friends and the Weight Watchers meetings was a huge part of my success,” she said.
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When Bianca first joined Weight Watchers, she focused solely on changing her poor eating habits and learning portion control. She adhered strictly to the program and attended weekly meetings, which paid off quickly. Within the first weeks, she lost over 9 pounds. From the start, her success was dependent on her strong support system.

Bianca then began incorporating light cardio into her daily routine, focusing on long, brisk walks. After a few months, having lost approximately 60 pounds, she finally joined the gym, where she worked out “hard” for an hour and a half, five times a week. Bianca’s gym routine included cardio for 45 minutes to an hour, then weights and isokinetics to strengthen her core muscles.

Bianca lost 100 pounds and now weighs in at 182. She’s dropped from a size 22 to a size 12 and is determined to “never gain the weight back.”
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Breakfast: Low-fat yogurt with either half a cup of Fiber One Cereal or a piece of fruit

Lunch: Lean protein (fish, chicken, or soy) and many vegetables (salads or raw/steamed veggies)

Dinner: Lean protein with vegetables, or sushi

Snacks: Weight Watchers snacks, 100-calorie snack pack, vegetables, edamame, sugar-free Jell-O
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Bianca says her life has changed “drastically” since she lost the weight and reclaimed her self-confidence. Her relationships with food and with other people have both improved significantly, and she no longer lets her size limit her opportunities. “Before, I felt that my weight was holding me back from everything that I wanted to do,” Bianca said. “I didn't have enough confidence to pursue what I truly wanted.”

Today, Bianca has the tools to approach any new situation, and takes a head-on approach to difficult ones; no longer wallowing in self-pity, she faces each day with the best possible attitude. And though she once shied away from fully pursuing broadcast journalism, she is now enrolled in a master’s degree program in communication studies. “I always believed that I had the smarts and personality to be involved in media, but now I finally feel that my outside matches what I’ve always felt on the inside.” Bianca doesn’t need to doubt her looks or capabilities anymore; she knows that if she could lose 100 pounds, she can accomplish anything.

She’s even returned to her favorite childhood pastimes, enjoying sports and physical activities she shunned for more than a decade. “I now enjoy exercising and see the importance of being active,” she said.”And it feels so good when others now come to me for advice on losing weight.”

Although she admits she still wants to lose a bit more weight, Bianca is realistic about how to do it in a healthy, natural way. To keep on track, she monitors everything she puts in her mouth and makes sure water and fiber are key components of her diet. “I’m finally living my life and living it abundantly. I am a 24-year-old woman who no longer feels that she is missing out on her life.”
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“My weight was something I was always aware of,” confessed Jenn Barton, 25, a social worker from Gorham, Maine, who spent her adolescence painfully shy and “ashamed” of her large size. From an early age, Jenn loathed anything that brought attention to her weight – posing for photos, clothes-shopping or intense sports – to the point where she shunned normal social activities, outings, and even the dating scene.

“I rarely dated,” she said. “I would try to meet people online using only pictures of my head and not my whole body. I was afraid to meet people in person because of my weight.” She even went so far as to poke fun of her weight before “other people could,” to make it seem lighthearted, as if she didn’t care about her appearance – but she did.

“My weight had affected everything in my life,” Jenn said. “From low self-esteem to holding back from trying new activities, I didn't want to fail at yet another thing.”

Growing up, Jenn had a close but complicated relationship with her mother. Although her mother was a “constant inspiration” who lost nearly 100 pounds, Jenn resisted her attempts to introduce a healthy lifestyle and nutritious diet into the family household. To rebel, Jenn snuck junk food into the home and ate disproportionately large amounts at home-cooked meals.

“Growing up, my mom tried her very hardest to provide healthy alternatives, but I much preferred my dad’s and brother's way of eating and snuck food with them,” she said. Looking back, she realizes that her abnormal eating habits were merely a manifestation of her frustration and an attempt to control her emotions: “I had a very intense relationship with food,” she said. “It was always there, and became a way of soothing my pain and celebrating my joy.”

Over time, Jenn’s out-of-control eating affected her family relationships and chipped away at her already fragile self-esteem. She felt like a “disappointment” to her mother and family members, which only made her eat even more – a vicious cycle that took nearly a decade to mend. Throughout that time, Jenn suffered numerous setbacks and humiliating incidents associated with her weight. She recalls one particularly hard moment: At 257 pounds, she ran in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with her mother, a breast cancer survivor. At one point during the three-and-a-half mile race, which Jenn found painful and exhausting, a small child pointed at Jenn and exclaimed, “Look, Mommy! The lady's so fat!” The child’s mother was so embarrassed that she swooped up the troublemaker and moved to the other side of the walking path.

“I pretended not to hear and continued walking, but it's a moment I'll never forget,” said Jen.
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Jen used food as an emotional pacifier and amplifier: Pasta, cakes and burgers calmed her during difficult moments and celebrated the bigger, better occasions. Since childhood, Jen was accustomed to turning to food for proud events or moments. For birthdays or good grades, her parents treated her to her favorite restaurant’s dessert.

“Food was always present at family gatherings or celebrations or even just a sleepover at a friend's house,” Jenn said. But although food was her “constant companion,” it was also her consistent enemy. “I felt out of control and as though I had no choice but to eat.” Jenn was well aware of her growing size and the increasingly negative effects it had on her body, but she felt absolutely “helpless” in changing her habits.
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Jenn’s days revolved around her next meal or snack. She “always looked forward to eating” and often consumed proportions meant for an entire family; she felt unable to stop herself from eating a whole box of macaroni and cheese or a half of loaf of bread for “morning toast.”

With little self-control, Jenn ate abnormal amounts and had little energy to exercise or pursue physical activities. Whenever she did try to diet, she went to extreme measures that generally backfired: She would either starve herself or go on diet pills, both which ended up with Jenn later gorging on her favorite foods. Over time, her bizarre eating habits and diet took their toll emotionally and socially.

“Each time I had to buy a new size of pants, I felt ashamed and horrible about myself, though I pretended that I simply enjoyed going out and getting new clothes,” she said. “I would cut the sizes out of my clothing, so that if my friends saw my clothes they wouldn't know my size.”
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Breakfast: One packet of Carnation Instant Breakfast, five pieces of white toast with butter

Lunch: One entire box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese with three glasses of milk

Dinner: Large Big Mac Meal at McDonald’s, hot fudge sundae; five cups of plain macaroni with half a stick of butter, ice cream

Snacks: Chocolate milkshakes, Devil Dogs, toast, peanut butter crackers, chocolate-dipped fruit, granola bars, pudding cups
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For Jenn, the most painful part was feeling powerless toward her own body. Although she knew she had choices every day, she felt incapable of steering herself off her unhealthy path. At 256 pounds, she felt helpless and painfully alone in a constant struggle to contain her eating habits. Tired of pretending she was content, she knew she’d have to take action: “I have always been the type of person who always acts happy, even when life is painful and hard on the inside. Very few people knew how much my weight affected my self-esteem.”

Ultimately, Jenn decided to change when faced with a difficult family issue. In 2006, while her mother waited in a hospital for a lifesaving transplant, a nurse approached Jenn with harsh news:

“[The nurse] told me straight out I was too overweight to be considered as a kidney donor for my mother,” recalled Jenn. “As tears sprung into my eyes, I walked out of that room feeling the greatest disappointment I have ever experienced. For the first time, it hit me that my weight was not only hurting me, but also the people I cared about most.”
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From that moment on, Jenn vowed to change her lifestyle. Although she “feared” the gym more than she did skydiving, she joined a local fitness center and, for the first time, committed to a daily workout routine. With small steps, she first started on light cardio, and then gradually incorporated weight training two to three times a week. It was a rough, uphill battle.

“The very first time I got on the elliptical machine, I could only do it for five minutes,” Jenn said. “I didn't give up, though. I returned to the gym faithfully six days a week and gave myself permission to take the time in my day to exercise and take care of myself.”

It wasn’t long before the gym became her sanctuary. She realized she enjoyed time alone to take out her frustrations physically while also taking back control of her body. Jenn challenged herself each day, pushing her body to new physical strengths and building back her self-confidence, which helped her pursue new interests like snowboarding, swimming, ballroom dancing and other activities.

Only a few weeks later, Jenn noticed she lost weight rather quickly, which motivated her to stick to her new regimen. But as soon as she hit a plateau, she knew she needed to “overhaul” her eating habits. She kept to one motto she read in a health article: Eat fewer calories than you burn off, on a consistent basis.

She opted for a low-fat, low-carbohydrate diet and gave her cupboards a healthy makeover. Determined to keep to a strict guideline, she planned nearly every meal, prepared every lunch she brought to work, and tried to limit meals outside of the home. For the first time in her life, she actually paid attention to food labels, portion sizes and ingredients. Slowly but surely, she stopped craving fatty and high-calorie foods. She drank skim milk instead of soda, water in place of alcohol and ate salad instead of pasta.

In 18 months, Jenn lost 114 pounds and now weighs in at just 143.

“My parents were so proud of me, and never failed to say so. My dad had already lost a large amount of weight, and my mom had lost a lot of weight years ago, so they were both able to relate to my process and were good listeners and cheerleaders along the way.”
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Breakfast: One cup of Fiber One cereal with skim milk, 60-calorie cup of yogurt or two eggs with whole-grain toast

Lunch: Spinach salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and either grilled chicken breast or a can of tuna

Dinner: Grilled chicken breast with broccoli or an Italian-seasoned turkey burger (no bun) and salad

Snacks: Banana with two tbsp of peanut butter, apple, string cheese, yogurt, Healthy Choice 80-calorie fudge bar
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Where she once feared the gym, Jenn now views physical activities as a challenge waiting to be conquered. She regularly pursues high-impact sports, such as snowboarding, hiking, marathon running and swimming, and even finally enjoys clothes-shopping. Apart from how it’s helped her appearance, it’s also provided a significant amount of energy and self-confidence.

“I can sincerely say that for the first time in my life, I am proud of myself and my accomplishments,” she said of her new lifestyle. “I enjoy feeling confident in my appearance, and not hiding from the rest of the world any longer. I continue to set goals and challenges for myself, and every day I have to make choices around my food.”

Even though she occasionally slips up when it comes to food, she no longer beats herself up. She has the tools and mindset to set reasonable expectations and allow herself to continue moving forward in her progress. For Jenn, it just means she’ll work harder the next time she’s faced with a challenging situation. “I feel blessed to have come this far, and I only hope that my story can inspire one person to take the first step toward the rest of their life.”
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“For as long as I can remember, I was overweight,” recalls April Wood, 40, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., who since childhood, was held back by her self-perception: fat, fearful and insecure.

Coming from a home that, above all, lived by the philosophy that nothing should go to waste, it was engrained in April to finish every morsel of food on her plate. As April got older, she lived by the motto, and ultimately developed an inability to curb her eating habits. She gorged on homemade dinners, sugary snacks and fast-food meals in public and in private moments. With little self-control, April felt unable to handle other seemingly normal tasks and goals: “I thought, if I can’t control my weight, there is no way that I can accomplish anything else,” she said.

Although she experienced a relatively average childhood, she was often teased by her peers and ridiculed for her abnormal size. It wasn’t until years later she realized the impact such an experience had on her fragile self-esteem.

“As a child I didn’t realize that being overweight affected me,” April said. “I was quiet, shy, withdrawn and had very few friends, but I didn’t know that anything was wrong with that. I didn’t want to be noticed. I just wanted to disappear. I was afraid to try anything or reach for what I wanted out of life.”

Socially, April suffered. Mortified by her appearance, she feared strangers’ reactions and often automatically assumed she was undesirable or a burden because of her large size. She felt that no one would voluntarily want to pursue a friendship with her, and over time she built a bitter wall between herself and others. To the outside world, she seemed quiet and sheepish, but she longed to show her more vocal and friendly side.

“I never let anyone in,” April said. “I thought if people saw who I really was, this outgoing, ready-to-take-on-the-world person, they would say, ‘Who does she think she is? She’s fat.’ ”

It took nearly three decades for April to finally feel comfortable in her own skin, to pursue relationships without indulging in self-loathing or social anxiety. Looking back, she realizes she alone was responsible for the many emotional and physical hardships she endured.

“I finally came to the conclusion, on my weight-loss journey, that people may have [put me] in that box, but I was the one holding the lid down tight.”
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As a child, April abided by the family rule: Do not waste. From money to food, she was taught to respect that which many less unfortunate individuals lacked. Without question, she adopted the habit of piling food on her plate and finishing it so that no one could accuse her of frivolous waste.

“I didn’t think,” she said of her former diet. “I put whatever I thought about into my mouth, hungry or not. And food never let me down.”

At 19, April married and soon thereafter had a child. Like her own parents, she passed down the lesson of not wasting food to her own kids. It wasn’t until years later that she became aware of the cycle, and finally understood that she didn’t need to finish an entire plate to feel full — it was simply a psychological hurdle. Emotionally, she was a wreck; she knew her attitude toward food veiled deep-rooted insecurities and issues:

“I hated myself and what my life had not become, but I felt helpless to change things. I was fat and that was who I was, period.”
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Too insecure and unmotivated, April lacked any portion control. Hungry or not, she consumed fatty, high-calorie meals in addition to sugary desserts and treats throughout the day. In the car or at the baseball field with her kids — wherever she went — she constantly snacked on food. Although generally concerned about her health, she sincerely assumed she simply ate the normal three recommended meals.

“Wasn’t that the American way? I knew nothing about calories and I did absolutely no exercise. Exercise was a sin in my book.”
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Breakfast: Five strips of bacon, two scrambled eggs, two pieces of white toast, two pancakes with syrup and butter, large sweet tea

Lunch: Big Mac, large fries and large Coke

Dinner: Two fried pork chops, one cup of broccoli and cheese and one cup mashed potatoes

Snacks: Apple pie and half a pint of vanilla ice cream
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Physically, April’s body was a mess: She ached in all her joints, suffered from stomach pain and headaches, constantly felt out of breath and her hands often went numb during sleep. Such discomfort left her with little motivation to exercise or pursue any physical activity, and it took a toll — emotionally: “I was very unhappy with my life,” April said. “I felt worthless. I hated my weight and felt out of control.”

By adulthood, April had given up any hope of losing weight; she tried “every diet out there,” and none seemed to stick or have any profound impact on her size. She was only 35 years old, but physically, she felt 60. She knew that if she didn’t take drastic action there would come a point at which she could no longer turn back the effects a poor lifestyle had on her health.

One day, during her mid-30s and at 250 pounds, April felt fed up. Large and out of control, she was determined to get her life back on track. She went to the public library and began educating herself on proper eating habits and nutrition. The next day, she woke up at 7 a.m. and ate a small, relatively healthy breakfast. A minimal gesture, but it was the first step forward in a new, positive direction.

“I looked at ways to slowly change my diet. I then started walking a very little, maybe a tenth of a mile a day.”

Initially, she didn’t tell anyone of her new plans. Still fearful of others, she decided to keep mum on the subject until she actually saw results. April had no support system because she refused to divulge her plan to anyone: “I didn’t want my family and friends to witness yet another failure by the fat lady.”
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Although apprehensive at first, little by little April incorporated new, healthy foods and habits. By focusing on health, rather than weight loss, she slowly introduced new grocery items into her diet and began building on her exercise routine. With small baby steps, she ultimately adopted a custom that fit seamlessly into her life.

“I lived two houses from the stop sign, and I started just walking to that stop sign and back home. Then I got to where I could go to the next stop sign and back, until eventually I made it the three miles around my neighborhood.”

Even though the initial months proved difficult — as exercise irritated her joints and limbs — she was determined to pursue an active, healthy lifestyle. She would often even have to talk herself into exercising, spending 30 minutes to an hour trying to convince herself that it was worth the inconvenience and pain.

“It was not an easy process,” April said of her struggle, “but eventually I started feeling so much better that I couldn’t imagine not doing the exercise.”

With weights and heavy cardio, April pushed herself to try harder — to give her body a new opportunity to perform at a level she’d never experienced. She constantly repeated the same motto whenever she felt the urge to quit: “Failure is not an option, so choose something else.” That something was another chance at life. In 11 months she lost 105 pounds and, at just 145 pounds, she now works as a group fitness instructor and regularly runs marathons. “I am as healthy as they come now,” she said proudly.
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Breakfast: One cup of oatmeal, one banana and two cups of water

Lunch: Three oz. chicken breast, half a cup of spinach, tomatoes, one-quarter cup low-fat dressing and six wheat crackers

Dinner: Three oz. turkey burger with mustard, spinach and tomatoes, one wheat bun, broccoli and oven-baked fries

Snacks: Six oz. yogurt with granola and low-fat whipped cream and a cherry; apple with a tablespoon of peanut butter
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April’s life now differs completely from that of five years ago: Whereas she once struggled to take her children to the ballpark, April now enjoys a successful career as a certified trainer and aerobics instructor. Having once feared social functions and new relationships, today she thrives on new friendships and helping others.

“The weight loss turned my entire life around. I became an instructor because I want to help release others from their box. I feel that they will trust me more to because they know that I was in their shoes only a short time ago... If you have never been overweight, you can never understand the emotional and social implications it can have.”

Armed with her new exercise and diet habits, April hasn’t suffered from any aches or pains — or even a cold — in more than four years. And to curb any uncontrollable cravings, she eats five times a day (but only when hungry and not at designated meal times). Careful not to backtrack, April considers everything that goes in her mouth, from drinks to snacks. With portion control, she knows she can indulge in her favorite foods without guilt or worry.

“I eat a little of everything, but always in moderation. My new lifestyle has changed me because I understand that I can do anything that I set my mind to. The only limitations are the ones that we put on ourselves.”

Although she realizes most people easily get caught up in the positive physical changes, April constantly reminds herself that looks come second to the health benefits of weight loss. First and foremost, she wanted to feel good about herself, not starve her body or attain society’s vision of what constitutes thin or attractive.

“I have curves. I am not a size two, but I am healthy, happy and free; I feel free to live my life to its fullest. I love myself and who I have become.” For those looking to pursue weight loss or change their eating habits, April says, “Look to your health; the weight loss will follow.”
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Jill Cacciatore, 36, of Lititz, Penn., was an unlikely candidate for weight gain. A former high school cheerleader and Miss Teen Long Island, Jill enjoyed an active and normal childhood filled with gymnastics, softball and sports. She was the quintessential healthy, happy teen. Her weight problems only began after she gave birth to her children, which left her too busy to dedicate time to fully getting back into shape.

“I was able to take off [the weight] after each child, but I never did it the correct way,” Jill said. “I always gained it back.”

Frustrated by her body changes, Jill felt unable to perform the normal daily activities that had filled her previous schedule. From taking her children to the pool to walking up a flight of stairs, suddenly everything took far more energy. And not only did she struggle with physical handicaps, but also the psychological hardship of adjusting to a new, less attractive appearance. As PTO president at her children’s school, Jill never felt comfortable in front of people, dreading the times she spoke in public. “I totally lost myself, with no confidence of even what I could do if I wanted to get back into the work force,” she said.

Uncomfortable in her own skin, Jill knew she needed to get back in shape to reclaim her confidence and better participate in her children’s lives.

“When I started to lose the weight, I got in a bathing suit for the first time and my 6-year-old son was shocked that I was going in the pool with him – he got so excited! I never realized that my weight was hindering my life from such simple things.”
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As a stay-at-home mom for nearly 14 years, Jill often found herself lonely and bored. Although she loved caring for her small children, she became restless and generally turned to food for a quick fix. Over the years, the habit intensified and soon enough, she lacked any portion control – at home alone, while preparing family meals, and while joining her family for dinner.

“I ate out of boredom,” Jill said. “I would grab a bag of chips, watch TV and eat without ever noticing how much I had just finished... I knew that I wasn't hungry, and that I really didn't need the food, but it was just something I did.”

For Jill, the most difficult aspect of her lifestyle was realizing she influenced her children’s eating habits as well. She noticed that they too, when bored, snuck off to snack and indulge in high-calorie, fatty foods.

“I wanted to feel good about myself again. I knew that there was a skinny person in there. I had seen her before, but it had been too long.”
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Jill would usually skip breakfasts during the week, but on weekends she would prepare a large, lavish breakfast of eggs, fried potatoes, pancakes, bagels and doughnuts.

“I thought I was treating my children and forming a family tradition,” Jill said of her high-calorie ritual. “But little did I know I was hurting them and myself.” Since she often had little time to prepare proper dinners, Jill also got into the habit of “treating” her children to fast food three to four times a week. With four children running in every direction, finding the hours to cook a healthy meal seemed nearly “impossible.” Over time, eating out at fast-food joints became the family norm.

And at home, Jill ate until she was “about to explode,” then indulged in midnight snacks of chocolate-chip cookies or homemade desserts.

“I was concerned about the weight I was putting on, but never felt the desire to lose the weight.” But it wasn’t until Jill saw photos of herself that she realized the extent of her situation: “I would get disgusted and then go do one of my fad diets to try and lose the weight quickly.”
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Breakfast: Four eggs with cheese, two pancakes, home fries, four slices of bacon and a large glass of orange juice

Lunch: Large fast-food meal with soda

Dinner: 16 oz. steak, mashed potatoes, broccoli with butter and cheese, and soda

Snacks: Chips, cookies, chocolate
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Apart from the physical setbacks – the persistent tiredness, the inability to walk long distances and sore legs – Jill constantly dealt with the emotional issues of her weight gain. Once the proud prom queen, she now felt limited in opportunities and invisible to her peers:

“The most painful part was the way I felt about myself,” she said. “I felt that I was worthless and no one would care about me. I didn't feel like I was very important and what I had to say mattered.”

Jill realized she finally needed to drastically change her diet when she no longer fit into her plus-size clothing, yet refused to buy the next size up. “My mother would always come in with new clothes for me, saying, ‘I'm tired of seeing you in the same thing. Let me just buy you a couple things in the next size.’ I would argue that I was going to lose the weight. Well, when I had reached a size 20, I knew I had had enough.”

Though she generally adopted a Scarlett O’Hara philosophy to dieting, always pushing off the start date to tomorrow (“I’ll start on Monday”), Jill knew that her procrastination had led her to a decade of misery. She knew she needed the strength to make a real commitment, and so she started that very same day – by walking three miles. “I was not going to put this off anymore. I wanted to feel good about myself again.”

Shortly thereafter, Jill began eating healthier foods and let go of her dependence on fad diets. “I realized this time I needed to do this the right way.”
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Jill committed herself to walking three miles five days a week and only eating when she was hungry. Fed up with diets, she tried to rely on healthier foods and threw out her favorite snacks (cookies, ice cream and chocolate) in favor of almonds, Jell-O and 100-calorie snacks.

“I didn't want to follow a certain plan,” Jill said. “I wanted to do something that I could follow forever. I gradually began to jog/walk and then did some light weights and abs work at home to Gilad tapes (that guy with the accent on the Hawaiian beach).”

With her ever-changing workout schedule, Jill was lucky enough to have never hit a plateau; she consistently lost two pounds a week, motivated by a shrinking dress size. Her friends and family quickly noticed her slimmer appearance and supported her through her 110-pound weight loss.

“They actually told me I was getting too skinny, but I am now running miles four times week and have found something that I truly love to do. It releases tension, gives me time alone – which is not easy with four kids.” Now weighing in at 140 pounds, Jill says her weight-loss journey not only reinstated her self-confidence, but also put her in the best shape of her life.
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Breakfast: Two slices of whole-grain bread, fruit and two glasses of water

Lunch: Lean Cuisine meal or a turkey breast sandwich, Chex Mix 100-calorie snack and two glasses of water

Dinner: Chicken or fish, brown rice with steamed vegetables and two glasses of water

Snacks: Chocolate pudding pops, fruit and 100-calorie snacks.
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Today, Jill simply views food as fuel for her body. She no longer obsesses about eating, which makes food more of an enjoyable, guilt-free necessity and less like a “burden.” With her constant running (she finishes five-mile races in 45 minutes), Jill’s body now requires healthy foods that provide energy instead of slowing her down. The benefits are twofold:

“I have honestly never felt so good in my entire life,” she said. “And now I play with my children and am able to keep up with them.” Confident and healthy, Jill also followed up on her long-term goals: She got a job and overcame her fear of speaking in public. “I feel like setting these goals for myself helps to keep my lifestyle going. And this is a lifestyle change.”

And for those struggling to lose weight, Jill advises against restricting diets that don’t fit into one’s lifestyle: “For me, diets didn't work. You can't live on a diet. You need to eat healthy, in moderation, and move. Find something you enjoy doing and move!”
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At 10 years old, an age when most children enjoy a carefree, breezy youth, Adina Stewart recalls worrying about her growing body size, anxiously wondering if she was more than 20 pounds heavier than her best friend. Nervous that she differed from her peers, Adina never felt comfortable among them.

She pinpoints the start of her weight gain and insecurity to one pivotal change in her childhood:

“My dad had left our family the summer before, and that summer marked the beginning of my weight problems.” Distraught and concerned, Adina began gorging on food to emotionally cope with her family’s issues — a handicap that escalated, leading her to tip the scales at 150 pounds at age 12.

“I was so mortified,” she said. “And that marked the beginning of lying to people about my weight.” While other girls her age wore revealing bikinis during summers, Adina opted for a one-piece with a T-shirt over it. “I was so ashamed of myself.”

Adina’s childhood was full of such difficult moments. Although she suffered from the daily hardships of her weight, it was the times she was forced to publicly submit to its limitations that hit her the hardest.

“The worst was being told that I was too heavy for a miniature merry-go-round in the mall. The ride was about to start, and I heard a beeping sound. I knew that sound was for me. And I was right — I had to get off.”

But despite such difficulties, it took nearly three decades for Adina — now a 38-year-old customer service representative in Carthage, Texas — to find the strength to overcome her poor eating habits and discover a healthier, happier lifestyle.
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At 8 years old, Adina vividly remembers her father, who was morbidly obese, consuming an entire family-size bag of Doritos in one sitting. Even at such a young age, she knew her father suffered from abnormal eating habits:

“We were in a hotel, after having just been evicted from our house. He thought I was asleep, but I was watching him. Looking back, I am sure he was a stress eater, a behavior I would pick up from him.”

It was Adina’s last memory of her father before he left the family. To this day that incident haunts her, and reminds her that eating cannot solve one’s problems. It’s a dealing mechanism, nothing more.

“No matter how you feel, you can eat until the only thing you can feel is the fullness in your belly,” Adina said. “It’s hard to be sad, or lonely, or even scared when you just feel full. Full made all negatives go away. Of course, it made so many positives go away too, because you can’t feel happy that way either. You feel nothing.”

Eventually, Adina emulated her father’s habits and showed little or no restraint when it came to meals. With no self-control, she ate disproportionately large amounts of food to either celebrate the good times or indulge herself during more trying ones.

But for Adina, the worst part was the poor example she set for her children. “They saw me eat with no bounds,” she said. “I knew that if I didn’t get it under control, they would follow down the same path, and I just could not have that. Even though I could not want more for myself, I wanted more for them.”
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After her father’s departure, Adina looked to fill the void by sneaking food — hiding her compulsive eating habits from the rest of her family. No one told her outright to stop eating or diet; she simply felt compelled to shield her newfound activity.

“I remember sneaking spoonfuls straight out of the casserole dish, so it would look like I was eating less than I really was,” she said. “I wadded up slices of white bread and ate them behind things, under things, even outside. It didn’t matter, as long as no one could see.”

As she got older, her problems followed her into high school, which only helped intensify her insecurities and social anxiety. “I was always aware of my problem,” Adina said of her teen years. “I just didn’t know how to face it. Certainly, I did not know how to fight it. I would lose 10 pounds here or there, and then I would gain 20.”

Because she was nervous and embarrassed by her appearance, Adina’s social life suffered. Even though she enjoyed a group of close friends, she shunned the normal public outings that fill most teenagers’ high school experience. “That mirror told me over and over that there was no point in going out. That I should just stay home. I made no goals. No plans. I could not see that there was any reason to. My obesity kept me paralyzed. I could not see beyond it.”
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Breakfast: Honey buns, doughnuts, or two bowls of sugar-coated cereal

Lunch: Extra crispy KFC meal with a fried pie and Coke

Dinner: Mexican food or an all-you-can-eat buffet

Snacks: Chips, candy bar and a Coke
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Although most people would describe Adina as happy, perky and cheerful, privately she was prone to negative thoughts. At 256 pounds, her weight held her back from fully enjoying her life and appreciating her own talents. No matter how good a time she had out with friends or loved ones, as soon as she was reminded of her size, she wallowed in self-pity and second-guessed why anyone would even want to talk to her.

“What people did not know was that my joy was hard to muster,” Adina said. “I woke up happy enough, but the first mirror I saw each day would remind me that I was fat.”

Apart from the emotional pain, Adina also suffered the physical limitations of her weight. Constantly uncomfortable, she strained to cross her legs or fit into a booth. If she had to climb over strangers to reach a middle seat in a theater, she would nearly have a panic attack. She pitied not only herself, but those who chose to be seen with her.

Although her father and grandmother had both suffered from obesity, Adina hoped it would end with her. She constantly worried about how her children would learn to eat properly if she refused to change her ways. “I wanted more for my children, but how could I tell my children to eat broccoli if I was eating chips? A banana if I was eating cookies?”

Adina knew that she had to kick-start the new family line, one of healthy individuals with good eating habits. It wasn’t enough to preach; if she wanted to affect her sons, she would need to completely transform her lifestyle and embrace diet and exercise.

“I had to show my boys what it took to be healthy and fit... I did not want them to suffer the pains of obesity. And as simple as it sounds, I wanted them to be able to wear a swimsuit with no T-shirt. Just like that wet shirt held me back from being able to truly enjoy the water, obesity held me back from being able to truly enjoy life.”
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Adina, who considers herself the poster child for “plateaus and perseverance,” tried various methods to lose the weight and keep it off. A longtime admirer of runners’ ultra-lean bodies, she took up jogging in hopes of one day conditioning her body to move as fast as the athletes she admired.

And after just a year of jogging — without any changes to her diet — Adina lost 27 pounds.

“I realized at some point I would have to make a plan. I actually started to be less careful with what I was eating, because I knew the jogging would keep me from gaining,” she said.

Since she knew she lacked discipline, Adina decided to put her meals into someone else’s hands: NutriSystem. For the next two months, she refused to eat anything that wasn’t part of her NutriSystem plan (although she made exceptions for her favorite treat — sugar-free Jell-O).

“Those two months totally reset my idea of what a portion was or was supposed to be, and I never ate the same again. A plan like that will force you to learn what a portion should be.”

After noticing the dramatic results, Adina decided to take her weight-loss commitment one step further — she joined a gym. Apprehensive at first about how she would fare, she soon made the gym her second home. The constant encouragement from staff and the camaraderie of fellow dieters helped her thrive during plateaus and challenging moments.

“[The staff] even hung my before-and-after pictures over the scale!” she exclaimed. “Everyone who weighs has to face me! And I don’t cut anyone any slack!”

Adina felt more comfortable with her size, but she still wasn’t exactly where she wanted to be. She had mastered exercise, but was doubtful about whether she had the right daily food intake. A few months after joining the gym, she contacted the makers of Oh Yeah! Bars to tell them how much she enjoyed their products. She ended up striking up a friendship with a representative who, after glancing at a list of her daily intake, informed her that her body was overworked and underfed.

“I had been in such fear of gaining the weight back that I had dropped my calories too low,” she said. “With his guidance and support, I actually doubled what I had been eating, and the rest of the weight came off! But that shows you: If you ask, help is there.”

That advice, combined with running and encouragement from her gym staff, helped Adina lose 121 pounds. She now weighs in at just 135.
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Meal 1: Four egg whites, one slice of Ezekiel Bread, and half of a banana

Meal 2: Small can of tuna, half a cup of rice

Meal 3: 45-gram Oh Yeah! bar, one slice of Ezekiel Bread

Meal 4: Three oz. chicken, half a cup of rice

Meal 5: Three oz. chicken, one cup of asparagus

Meal 6: Oh Yeah! protein wafer bar
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After decades of struggling with a lack of self-control and humiliation over her body, Adina is now finally content with her size and diet. Food is simply fuel for her body today; it no longer controls her thoughts or actions.

“It doesn’t loom over me,” she said. “I don’t sneak it, and I’m not afraid of it. Eating is just something I do to give me the energy to enjoy the much fuller life I now lead.”

Adina feels that many more opportunities are available to her since she shed the weight. She now does public speaking about weight loss, helps struggling dieters at her gym, and feels more confident about achieving her aspirations. “My goal now is to stay happy, healthy, and fit. I constantly seek ways to share my story with others. If I can help even one person find what I did within, my heart is happy.”

More important, Adina feels like she can finally blend in with the crowd instead of sticking out for her size. Having spent her childhood and teens trying to hide from public view, she can now breathe easy that strangers aren’t casting judgment.

“Finally, after all these years, I am just your average girl walking through those doors. I can blend if I want, or I can stand out if I want... The future is brighter for me now. Losing the weight is without a doubt the best thing I ever did.”
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Considered the “biggest kid” in her school, Linda Horton — a 33-year-old customer service specialist from Knoxville, Tenn. — suffered her peers’ cruel taunts and teasing all through childhood. Ostracized at school and in play groups, she lacked self-confidence from a young age. And even when schoolmates tried to be nice, they left her feeling even more insecure.

“People would always say, ‘You have such a pretty face and would be beautiful if you could lose some weight,’” Linda said. “I think that is the worst thing anyone can say to someone.”

Determined to prove herself to her seventh-grade class, she tried out for the school’s competitive cheerleading team, a group composed of mostly slim, popular girls. In front of the entire school, Linda — at size 16 — performed her routine, which was less than stellar.

Her plan backfired.

“It made the teasing so much worse over the next two years,” Linda recalled. “If I had to make that decision again, I would not have done it.”

As Linda felt more and more isolated, she sought refuge in a solitary sport — ice skating. While friends attended football games and parties, she found her “home away from home” at the rink, where popularity and weight were of no significance. But as she got older, Linda put on more weight — and became too big to skate. By the time she was 25 years old, she couldn’t even look in the mirror without shame.

“I knew my weight was out of control, but had no idea how much because I refused to weigh myself. I remember that even the biggest sizes at the big girls’ store wouldn’t fit me anymore. I was having a hard time getting around, and my health was also getting worse.”

Anxious and insecure, Linda — on medicine for blood pressure, depression and nerves — felt that weight controlled every aspect of her life. Everything revolved around her size: her insecurities, health, emotions, even her wardrobe.

“I used to think people looked at me because I was pretty and not because I was big, but by this point I felt that the only reason people did look at me was because I was big. When I would go to the grocery store, I would sometimes sit in my car for an hour, talking myself into going in.”

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For Linda, food was more than just an addiction — it was her refuge. She used food to celebrate or to control nearly every emotion — happiness, anxiety, fear, loneliness, sadness — but it was a vicious cycle that generally left her feeling empty or guilty soon thereafter.

“I saw food as my friend,” she said. “Any emotion I had, I used food to deal with it.”

Linda remembers one particularly difficult incident in which her doctor forced her to step on his scale. She mentally prepared herself to read 300 — or at worst, 350 pounds.

She was astounded to learn she had hit 546 pounds.

“I wanted to die right that very second. I felt so many things all at once: shame, guilt, humiliation, loneliness, desperation.” Linda cried all the entire way home, praying that she could one day overcome her weight. “You feel so trapped and scared. So what did I do? I went home and ate even more... I was very concerned, but I was so depressed and felt like I could not change it so I kept on eating.”
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Linda admits she ate “so much” on a typical work day, often stopping at McDonald’s for breakfast biscuits and hash browns before heading to the office. Lunch and dinner were no better; Linda depended on fast food restaurants for supersized, fried comfort foods like chicken nuggets and french fries. As for hydration, she never consumed anything but soda.

“I was in complete denial,” Linda said. “I could no longer go shopping or do anything active with my friends — all of my relationships suffered — because I became a person that stayed in all the time. I was staying in and eating because it made me feel better if I was sad or lonely.”
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Breakfast: Two steak biscuits, large hash browns and a large Coke

Lunch: 20 pieces of fried chicken nuggets, large order of french fries and a large Coke

Dinner: Cheese dip, steak fajitas and cheesecake

Snacks: Chips and dip, cookies, ice cream
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For Linda, every day was a struggle. Her body ached, strangers stared, and she didn’t participate much in family activities. Food or shame shadowed her every thought and action, and her relationships with others began to suffer: Even seemingly mundane or normal daily activities, such as walking, driving or shopping, became burdensome chores.

“One of the most humiliating experiences of my life was when I was stopped in a roadblock and a cop asked me why I didn’t have my seatbelt on. I had to tell him because it didn’t fit. That is what my life had become.”

One week after her doctor forced her onto the scale, Linda was watching Dr. Phil on “Oprah,” and felt as if his words were specifically aimed at her.

“He said you have to go back to the time in your life where you started to use food to cope with life. For some reason that stayed with me and I went back through my life and realized when I started to use food.” Linda realized that from a young age, she depended on food to soothe her emotional turmoil — for when her parents argued or if she felt anxious. Food pacified her, and she continued her poor eating habits into adulthood.

“Breakups, job changes, money problems, any kind of problem I had — I would use food as my solution, but it never really made anything better except for that very moment.”
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Linda slowly restructured her diet, starting by eliminating one unhealthy food at a time. Her first obstacle? Soda.

“I drank it all the time, so I just concentrated on taking that out for the first four weeks.” Thereafter, Linda targeted cookies, cake, and sweets — and within just seven weeks, she lost over 30 pounds.

Linda then began incorporating exercise into her life, taking small steps, such as parking as far away as possible from a location in order to force herself to walk. Soon she was walking or swimming two to three times a week.

Within one year, she had shed 120 pounds and felt more at ease getting around. She celebrated her year’s success by shopping for jeans with a friend at Lane Bryant.

“The biggest size they had was a 28 and I knew that wouldn’t fit me, but I wanted to try them on anyway. I went in the dressing room and I put them on — they were tight but they fit. I came out of that dressing room screaming and crying, and the salesgirl came over and I told her and she started crying. That was truly a great day in my life.”

Linda lost 294 pounds and now weighs in at 252 pounds. She says she believes “that if you want it and you have faith, then you can change any obstacle in your life, no matter what it is.”
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Breakfast: Yogurt or a granola bar

Lunch: Turkey sandwich on whole-wheat bread

Dinner: Baked chicken, small salad and a potato

Snacks: Popcorn or string cheese
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Whereas Linda once lived to eat, she now simply eats to live. Her day no longer revolves around fast food restaurants or drowning her feelings in cookie boxes. “Now I can do things in moderation; then, I couldn’t. I couldn’t eat one cookie, because I had to have 10. Now I can eat one and be satisfied with that. I don't strive to be skinny; I just want to be healthy.”

With her new, svelte figure and new outlook, her confidence, health and emotional stability have greatly improved. “I feel so much better about myself and I truly want to use my life to help others change theirs,” Linda said. She looks forward to accomplishing a variety of goals: Getting married and having kids, flying across the country, being a motivational speaker, and even going to an amusement park.

“I add new things to this list every day,” Linda said. “Everything is fun and new and exciting to me. I truly feel that my life is just beginning.”
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Vivian “Bunny” Dimmel, a 58-year-old teacher from Liverpool, N.Y, struggled with her weight since she was a child. Brought up in a difficult home — with an alcoholic father, a weight-obsessed mother and an insensitive brother — Bunny found emotional comfort in eating, a poor habit that escalated into her teens, and ultimately, into obesity.

“It was very hard for me to be home with [my father] and his abusive behavior,” Bunny said. “I would stay in my room and eat to console myself. My mother was obsessed with me being thin and I never had a birthday cake until I went to college.”

Nicknamed “Bunny” as a child, she remembers peers’ cruel taunts, pointing fingers and exclaiming “That is not a Bunny, that is an elephant!” Even her own brother had little sympathy for her struggle: While in her 20s, Bunny’s brother proclaimed he would never speak to her again unless she slimmed down to a “normal” size. The two did not communicate for over 20 years.

“He died never knowing that I had finally lost weight,” Bunny said. “There has been irreparable damage to my self-esteem from my childhood that has been with me all my life. One of my favorite charms on a bracelet I wear today is that of an ugly duckling. My weight loss never restored the self-esteem most people have.”

As Bunny got older, married and had three children, she gained even more weight and her eating spiraled out-of-control. By her 30s, her wardrobe mostly consisted of nightgowns because that was all that could fit her, and she refused to leave the house. Her husband George, who was diagnosed with cancer, begged Bunny to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

“[George] really feared for what was going to happen,” Bunny said. “I was so upset that he was dying. He said that I was going to keep suffering, and I was hoping he just wanted me to lose 50 pounds. But he said, ’All of it.’”

When her husband passed away, Bunny was devastated, but equally concerned over how to financially survive and raise their children while battling obesity. It took her nine years to deliver on her promise to George, and to finally feel secure again.
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To fuel her emotional needs, Bunny often ate large amounts of comfort foods and sugary snacks. She consumed entire bags of cookies, chips or candy but never quite felt “full” enough to stop. Letting food control her life, she became obsessed with cooking, baking, food shows and buying the latest cookware, which only led to more mindless eating.

For a long time, Bunny believed her obesity was genetic or that she inherited a slow metabolism, even though her grandparents and parents were small-framed. “I let my weight be an obstacle all of my life. It prevented me from achieving a sound financial future, and I will never understand why I did that.”
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Although she was able to compose herself in public, when left alone, Bunny ate fatty and oily dishes, and then snacked on sugary snacks throughout the day. Even her nights were plagued with a food obsession: “I got up in the middle of the night and ate sandwiches, desserts, or anything else available to me. I was a compulsive night-eater,” she said.

“I remember eating uncontrollably, and never being satisfied no matter what I ate,” she said. While growing up, her parents only exacerbated the problem by labeling the food in their home, trying to ensure Bunny didn’t snack on anyone else’s portions. “That only made the situation worst. My food was the rabbit food; theirs was what I wanted.”

As the years passed, Bunny relied more heavily on food, often gorging on home-cooked fried meals, followed by bouts of self-loathing and guilt. With this vicious cycle, she felt powerless, weak and miserable. “I learned to repeat this pattern for years and it was one of the hardest mindsets to break away from.”
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Breakfast: Pancakes, muffins, donuts, pastries, several pieces of homemade toast

Lunch: Two sandwiches with a bag of chips

Dinner: Macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, homemade fried chicken, casseroles, and several helpings of potatoes

Snacks: Cookies, candy, an entire stack of Ritz crackers, potato chips, pretzels and half a chunk of cheese
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For Bunny, the constant self-loathing was the most painful aspect of her obesity. “Enslaved” by her poor eating habits, she felt helpless in controlling her desire for food. Even the cruel taunts and sneers of strangers couldn’t compare to the inner turmoil she struggled with for over three decades.

“Although people say mean things, and obese individuals face discrimination daily, it is the worthless feelings that torture them the most,” Bunny said of her experience. “I came to a fork in the road and either I controlled my weight problem, or my weight problem was going to control me into the grave.”

When she turned 50, she realized she no longer worried about looks or beauty, but rather her health — at age 48, she weighed 435 pounds, consumed 6,000 calories daily and was already diagnosed with diabetes. For Bunny, it seemed as if “everything was out of sync.” Her fears crystallized when soon after her husband’s death, Syracuse University rejected her application for a certificate of advance studies in education due to her “lack of leadership skills” — a hurtful decision that made Bunny feel as if she lost her “future.” Only 10 days later, she lost her “present” after being sent home from her public school teaching position because she couldn’t climb the building’s stairs.

“The two events catapulted me into a place that mentally I had never been before,” she said. “I believed my life was over. Deep inside of me, a tiny part of me clung to the hope that losing weight might change my life.” For the first time in her life, Bunny contemplated suicide. At that moment, she knew she had two choices — continue on her path to self-destruction, or find the courage to make a dramatic change.

Thinking of her three loving children, Bunny made a pact — to actively pursue losing weight for the next two years. “It was that agreement that I made with myself that helped me discover who I am and enabled me to rise above the adversity I lived with all of my life.”
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Angry and frustrated by how her size affected her life goals, Bunny declared war on her body. Jobless and broke, she was determined to get into shape in hopes of getting her career back on track. She believed that by becoming healthy, the rest of her life would fall into place.

“I refused to yield to any excuses,” Bunny said. “And with a vengeance directed at every part of society that for a lifetime had hurt me, I set out to get even with the world.”

Bunny began by swimming each day and enrolling in gym classes. Within a few weeks, she was exercising seven days a week, roughly four to six hours a day, and taking long walks whenever she felt the urge to snack. Though she still struggled with her insecurities, she was committed to working out despite her fears: “I swallowed my pride and joined an aerobic class with women that were a fourth the size I was.” Just a few months later, she lost 50 pounds.

When she hit a plateau at a little over 300 pounds, Bunny decided to quit eating large amounts of food at night and to incorporate fruits and vegetables into her diet. “I read, listened, studied nutrition, stayed informed, and made lifestyle changes slowly,” she said of her progress. From then on, she never ate meals after 7:30 p.m., which helped her lose another 50 pounds. With over 100 pounds lost, Bunny finally made peace with herself and the bitterness and anger slowly dissipated.

“I accepted full responsibility for the mess I had made with my life by being a compulsive overeater. I sobbed my eyes out on a park bench letting go of the part of me that had strangled me for so many years.” With daily six-mile walks and regular gym workouts, Bunny lost a total of 250 pounds and now weighs in at 172 pounds. Proud and fit, she no longer lets her stomach rule her life.

“Losing weight is a bicycle act: it takes a front wheel — the right food — and the back wheel — exercise, to travel the highway to health. You need both of those things to take a smooth ride. It is unbelievable that I am more fit in my 50s than I was in my 20s.”
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Breakfast: Grapefruit and nuts or an omelet with vegetables

Lunch: Organic plain yogurt with fresh fruit, or almond/peanut/cashew butter on rice cakes, or tuna with hummus on rice cakes

Dinner: Chicken, turkey, or fish, and steamed vegetables

Snacks: Fresh fruit, dried fruits (goji berries, freeze dried fruits and vegetables) nuts, edamame beans, popcorn, and gluten-free snacks
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Today, Bunny enjoys an entirely different relationship with food — it’s fuel to nourish her body, nothing more. She stopped turning to food for emotional comfort or to keep her entertained. Now, when she feels overcome with depression or stress, she uses exercise to cope, and believes that “long walks cure everything.”

Bunny also learned to love a healthy variety of fruits of vegetables. Within a year of her new lifestyle, she noticed that her once-insatiable hunger had subsided. “If I ate real food, such as fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, nuts, beans, and whole grains, I wasn’t as hungry as when I consumed processed foods,” Bunny said. “Spelt, quinoa, and other whole grains help me in two ways: they last longer in my body, and they don’t signal me to keep eating them.” Bunny feels content knowing she’s consuming food she can control and enjoy.

“I never realized the role food played in my life, until I stepped away from it. When I took control of the food issues I had, I took control of my life.” The inner strength her new diet provided helped Bunny realize her aspirations: to write and help others overcome their weight issues. She now pens a health column and reaches out to other women looking for guidance.

“It is my goal in life to help others journey with me. Obese people can have a 100 percent chance of success — they need to concentrate on that to succeed. Quitting was not an option for me. It is an unbelievable triumph to face your weakness head on and walk away from it.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Veolia Gibson","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Veolia_4FIRST.hmedium.jpg","","", "sub", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "375", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "Veolia Gibson, a 54-year-old nanny from Atlanta, Ga., spent decades trying to shed her excess weight and the issues associated with them. Once a happy child who enjoyed tending to the family farm, Veolia began putting on pounds at the age of 17 after her mother was diagnosed with cancer. “My teenage years were bittersweet,” she said. “I was valedictorian, student council president, and recipient of numerous awards at the state and local level, but my mother was not physically able to attend my high school graduation.”

After her mother passed away, Veolia took on the role of family caregiver — and the pressure of looking after her younger siblings was often too much for her to handle. Instead of dealing with her gradual weight gain, Veolia opted to put her issues on the back burner.

“I wanted to lose the weight but had never really dealt with a weight problem,” she said of her late teenage years. “After a couple of years, I tried to lose the weight — I became 25 pounds or so heavier than I wanted to be.” Veolia tried a string of fad diets, including diet pills, but she always ended up gaining back the weight plus 10 or more pounds. The situation only escalated after she married and gained more during each of her pregnancies.

By the time she and her husband were divorced, her life was solely devoted to working and raising her three children. “There were simply not enough hours in the day to worry about my weight,” she said. “For about 30 years, I neglected my body, my health and my well-being.” As a result, Veolia gradually grew from 150 pounds to 400.
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Food philosophy","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Veolia_7SECOND.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "298", "193", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "Veolia generally ate large amounts of food — a way to self-medicate during difficult, stressful times — and hardly ever exercised. Too busy either at the office or at home, she ate without ever considering her fat or caloric intake.

“Sitting all day at the office, I generally worked 10 to 12 hours a day,” Veolia said of her former lifestyle. “Then, I would sit on the sofa after the children were cared for. I never participated in any regular, physical activity. I would just eat as much as I wanted.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Eating habits","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Veolia_8_THIRD.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "287", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "Decades of minimal exercise combined with poor eating habits and repeatedly eating her children’s leftovers took their toll. As the years passed, Veolia gradually consumed more and more food until — after 30 years — she hit 262 pounds.

“If I wanted a second helping, I would have it just because the dish was delicious, even though I was no longer hungry,” she confessed. “I had three or four helpings, even if I was full and sometimes I would even get to the point of being sick just trying to force it — just because it was on my plate.”

She lacked portion control and her diet primarily consisted of greasy, buttery foods. Veolia generally skipped breakfast, then snacked on danishes or ice cream until her first meal at her office.
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'Before' daily intake","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Veolia5.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "217", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "Breakfast: Danish

Lunch: burger, fries, soda

Dinner: Meat dish with two side dishes

Snacks: Cookies, chips, pint of ice cream
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","The turning point","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Veolia9.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "298", "134", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "For Veolia, the most difficult aspect was dealing with the physical limitations — walking or getting on or off of a sofa became burdensome activities. She suffered from joint pain, back pain, headaches, constant sweating and fatigue — which left her with little energy to pursue other interests. Over time, Veolia felt the physical setbacks of her obesity held her back from accomplishing her personal and career goals:

“I was not reaching my full potential. I was a very successful student, but aside from having three wonderful children, my adulthood was unremarkable. I wanted to be all that I could be and make a positive impact on others.”

Years of being publicly mocked and enduring humiliating situations, such as requesting airplane seat belt extenders, impacted her confidence. And socially, she grew tired of the negative reactions from strangers, even her own family. “My own grandchildren said ‘Grandma, I don't want my stomach to be big like yours,'\" she said. “I felt that I was trapped in a fat cocoon and wanted to escape!”

For years, Veolia knew she needed to drastically change her diet in order to lead a healthier, happier lifestyle, but she lacked the motivation to get started. But once she grew too large to shop in the plus-size department, she felt the need to make a change:

“I realized something very simplistic but life-changing for me: I was going to get to eat every single day of my life, so why not eat one serving of whatever I enjoyed, versus overeating?” And just like that, Veolia began practicing portion control, by enjoying only a few potato chips instead of consuming an entire bag. “I saw that I was not taking care of the precious gift I had been given. I knew I had the power within me to change, so gradually, I did.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Losing the weight","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/A_veolia_4.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "298", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "Veolia’s first step towards a new, healthy lifestyle included buying a new pair of New Balance sneakers. Determined to get into shape, she committed to trying to walk each day.

“I went for a walk one day and was embarrassed at how out of shape I was,” she said. “I could barely make it back home, but I decided I would do it every day, nonetheless.” Within just a few short weeks, Veolia’s walks paid off: Her clothes were baggy, and the mild weight loss inspired her to take a more serious interest in her diet. She began inspecting the quality of her meals and began picking up foods from her local farmer’s market.

“I noticed that I ate even less food if the quality of it was better. My lifestyle evolved to a daily routine of walking and eating delicious, healthy foods.” Abiding by the motto \"if you want it, eat it,\" Veolia still consumed some of her favorite foods, but made sure to indulge in reasonable portions without “going overboard.” In just a year and a half, Veolia lost 130 pounds and felt “relatively slim” at 270 pounds — she lost a total of 262 pounds from her heaviest weight of 400 pounds. She celebrated by buying an entirely new wardrobe and enjoying her new size four figure:

“Now, I love my body!” she said. “I have kept the weight off for 19 months. I now focus on eating healthy and exercising daily.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'After' daily intake","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/A_Veolia_1.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "411", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "Breakfast: Oatmeal, yogurt, fresh fruit, coffee

Lunch: Soup, large salad with protein

Dinner: Vegetables, meat, beans

Snacks: Single serving of nuts, fresh fruit, and yogurt
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","New outlook","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/A_veolia6.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "298", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "Today, Veolia carefully monitors her intake by eating healthy portions of nutritious foods. Her personal pleasures are no longer dependent on eating — instead she focuses on spending quality time with her family and friends or enjoying physical activities, like long walks or exercise.

“I feel great,” Veolia said of her new lifestyle. “I am the happiest and most fulfilled! Now I look forward to getting up early, getting going, and enjoying life — living each day to the fullest!”

Learn more about Veolia's weight loss journey

"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Michelle Schafer","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Michelle2.hmedium.jpg","","", "sub", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "404", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Michelle Schafer, a 48-year-old elementary school teacher from Williamsville, Ill., is a former cheerleader who never worried about her weight during her childhood or teen years. The school’s prom queen, Michelle was known as the popular girl who boasted a large circle of friends and a svelte figure.

“I never had to worry about my weight,” Michelle recalled. “I was small for my age and remember wearing ‘slim’ size jeans from Sears.”

But during college, Michelle turned to food to calm her nerves during stressful academic times. What began as social snacking at night soon turned into an inability to control food portions. Too busy to exercise, Michelle gradually put on weight — five pounds at a time. “The only exercise that I really got was walking to class, which was only 10 minutes from one side of the campus to the other,” she said. “The ‘freshman 15’ came on quite easily and then some.” By the time she graduated college, she had gained over 30 pounds.

Michelle eventually married and moved to Iowa, where she found herself feeling insecure as she searched for a job and tried to make new friends. “My confidence was shaky at times due to being overweight, but I tried to pretend like it didn't bother me,” she said. “We had a large group of people we socialized with and as I would get ready for a party or dinner, I would silently run through the other people I knew that would be there that were larger than me so I wouldn’t be the ‘biggest’ one there.”

Michelle often felt a need to compensate for her size with her personality; ashamed of her appearance, she thought her vivaciousness could make up for it. “I always tried to be the one person that was the most fun so people wouldn’t notice my weight problem, but it was really becoming an issue.” She tried a string of fad diets, but generally lost only a few pounds, then gained back twice as much.

The situation only escalated after she gave birth to her daughters. As she continued to gain weight, Michelle became more self conscious, especially since she was heavier than her husband: “In fact, one of my daughters was a planned C-section and I made my husband leave the room when the anesthesiologist came to question me about my height and weight before surgery, because I didn't want him to know my actual weight. By then it was well over 200 pounds.”

When Michelle moved back to Illinois, she constantly worried about running into old friends from high school — dreading their reactions to her now much larger frame. She avoided social situations, often fearing seating arrangements, wondering whether she might accidentally crush a chair, or humiliate her own daughters. “I avoided anything I knew would have people from my past attending,” she said. “And once my daughters got in school, I often thought I would volunteer in their classrooms but I didn't want to be an embarrassment to them so I pretended like I was busy or didn't have the time.”
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Michelle used food for comfort during difficult or stressful times, but also as entertainment and a cure for boredom. Like an emotional pacifier, she ate to soothe inner turmoil, then adopted a Scarlett O’Hara philosophy to assuage her guilt. “I was famous for deciding I was going to diet ‘tomorrow’ so I could load up on anything and everything ‘today’ — only ‘tomorrow’ never came since I didn't stick with my goal. I was miserable at 296 pounds and ready to give up on ever losing weight.”"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Eating habits","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Michelle4.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "407", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "
Michelle lacked the ability to control herself at meals; she simply had no portion control. Regardless of how hungry she was, she consumed two or three times the recommended serving size. “Instead of one piece of cake it would be three, or an entire bag of chips or a dozen cookies,” she said. “It was mindless eating.”

Michelle generally ate normal amounts in front of her family, but privately, she gorged on snacks, sweets and dinner leftovers. Ashamed and afraid of her family’s criticism, she kept her poor eating habits a secret. “At times I would feel sick, but tell myself that ‘next Monday’ would be the start up for some new diet plan.”

Michelle repeatedly failed to meet her goals. She would make a New Year's resolution but by summer, she would realize she hadn’t made any changes. “I adopted the ‘it's too late to worry about it now, summer is already here’ mentality and then set another goal that I would lose weight before I came back to school in August. When I failed at that, my next goal would be to lose weight before the holiday season and then I would be right back to my original goal at New Year's Eve. Instead of losing weight, I had lost another year to being obese.”
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Breakfast: Sugar cereal, donuts, bagels

Lunch: Fast food burger, fries, soda, baked potato, Hostess snacks

Dinner: Several slices of pizza, soda, breadsticks, cheesecake

Snacks: ice cream, candy bars, chips, cupcakes, large tub of buttered popcorn
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","The turning point","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Michelle1.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "408", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

In addition to constant knee pain (her knees often suffered under the weight of her size) Michelle also worried about a heart attack or stroke. “My sister had bariatric surgery and I felt like that was going to be me if didn’t do something.”

Michelle finally decided to make a drastic change after an anxious, humiliating moment in her classroom. While she was teaching her first-graders how to prepare for a camping trip, one of her students asked her to read the class a story while on one of the camping folding chairs, which she knew only held 250 pounds. Too embarrassed to explain that she worried about crushing it, Michelle balanced herself on the chair by putting all the weight on her legs in hopes of sparing the chair from breaking.

“I was in a panic the entire time that I was going to collapse the chair,” Michelle said. “I was so relieved when I got to the end of the story. I decided that I never wanted to go through that again.”
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During the low-carbohydrate craze of 2004, Michelle saw a TODAY segment on the South Beach Diet and felt compelled to try the program. Within two weeks, after forcing herself to cook separate meals for herself and for her family, she lost 15 pounds. “That was the magic bullet for me,” Michelle said. “I was hooked.”

Michelle began walking on a treadmill regularly as she was going to “have to exercise to make a difference.” She woke up each morning at 3 a.m. to walk before her school day started, since she was always too tired for a post-workday workout. Her weight continued to drop, and within five months, she lost over 50 pounds. She barely recognized herself when she looked in a mirror.

“A lot of people noticed that I had lost some weight, but it was harder to tell as I continued to wear my baggy clothing. I vowed that I would have a new wardrobe when I came back to school in the fall.”

When Michelle returned from summer break, she was 75 pounds lighter and boasted a new, stylish wardrobe. Her co-workers and students couldn’t contain their shock. “They couldn't believe how much weight I had lost and really, neither could I. One student came up to me and said ‘Mrs. Schafer, you really look different!’ I smiled and prepared myself for him to mention my weight loss but instead he said, ‘I know — it's because you are wearing makeup!’ ”

By following the South Beach Diet, walking regularly and limiting her meal intake, Michelle lost 134 pounds. She now weighs in at 162 pounds.
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Breakfast: Oatmeal with blueberries, cup of low-fat yogurt and one egg white; or an English muffin with peanut butter and sugar-free jam, pineapple, melon or grapefruit and a cup of low-fat yogurt

Lunch: Turkey wrap, salad with grilled chicken or a frozen low-calorie entree

Dinner: Grilled chicken, lean pork or fish, assorted vegetables, brown rice or half of a baked potato

Snacks: 100-calorie packs of popcorn or crackers, fruit and vegetables
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","New outlook","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/A_MichelleDarkgreen.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "364", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Today, Michelle runs for four miles on the treadmill or outside every day. She also partners with a friend to help them both stay motivated and committed to regular workouts. Together, they take numerous classes throughout the week: body-strengthening class with weights, yoga, step aerobics, zumba, hip-hop and core strengthening.

As for food, Michelle now understands the importance of portion control and makes an extended effort to find other venues to handle her stress. She counts calories, watches her carbohydrate intake, weighs herself regularly, subscribes to Cooking Light magazine, keeps track of her weekend food indulgences and even refrains from wearing loose clothing, since it makes her feel that she doesn’t have to watch her intake.

“I have realized that I have to stay active and work out to maintain my weight in addition to following a healthy eating lifestyle. I am 48 years old, but feel like I am 25!”

Still, Michelle sometimes feels upset that she spent “such a huge chunk” of her life overweight and unhappy. But then she remembers that she’s currently adding years to her life by living a healthy, active lifestyle. “My friends tell me that I am much more self-confident and I am not afraid to try new things or new situations as I don't have to worry about my weight holding me back.”

She no longer criticizes herself and has come to fully appreciate her talents and appearance. Now confident and secure, Michelle feels capable of pursuing anything and everything she desires.

“I know it sounds cliche, but if I can do it, then anyone can,” Michelle said. “You just have to believe in yourself and set small goals.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Kathy Stuart","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Kathy1_wedding.vmedium.jpg","","", "sub", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "233", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Kathy Stuart, a 34-year-old teacher from North Ridgeville, Ohio, spent a decade feeling “miserable” over her weight. Ashamed of her size, she shunned normal daily activities and skipped out on family outings — she would sit out as her husband and children took a dip in the pool because she was embarrassed to be seen in a bathing suit; she feared school trips because she could barely fit in bus seats; playing with her children often left her tired and out of breath.

Kathy, who was an average weight during her youth and teens, began putting on pounds in college — primarily from the stress of earning an undergraduate degree and working at night. “I ate a lot of fast food in addition to eating late at night, then going to bed,” Kathy said of her former routine. “Exercise was not part of my life, or something that I was even interested in.”

The situation only escalated once she met her husband. Their activities revolved around eating out in restaurants or staying in to snack and watch TV. Together, they ate and barely ever moved. “[My husband’s] eating habits were just as bad as mine; we began to make things worse.”

Kathy finally realized she was unhappy with her weight when she began searching for her ideal wedding gown. Too large for the more petite and feminine dresses, she found herself with a small selection of options. “There were hardly any dresses that I could try on. On a day when I should have felt beautiful, I felt that I had to ‘settle’ for a dress,” Kathy said. “Being thin would have made the day more special because I could have had the dress I dreamed of wearing.”

Over the next few years, Kathy continued to gain more weight, an issue that slowly began to gnaw away at her conscience. Though she had always wanted to pursue teaching, she felt guilty about her appearance and worried whether students judged her. “I felt a bit hypocritical teaching them about health issues and being healthy when I was not practicing good health habits myself.”
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For Kathy, food was an emotional escape and a quick fix for boredom. During bouts of anger, sadness or anxiety, she turned to eating to soothe her inner turmoil. “In the evenings I would turn to food out of boredom while I was watching TV, or to relax once my boys went to bed,” she said.

Nighttime snacking evolved out of Kathy’s need to relax after a long, stressful day at work. Since she felt rushed during family dinners — trying to ensure everyone else was well-fed — she rarely took the time to sit down and savor her meal, and therefore tried to compensate for it hours later. “Once the boys went to bed it was my time to sit down, unwind, watch TV, and eat. It started a bad habit, associating watching TV with eating food. Even today, when I sit to watch TV, I always want something to munch on,” Kathy said. “As a result, I do not watch much TV anymore.”
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Kathy’s diet primarily consisted of fried food and junk items like chicken nuggets, French fries, chips, or ice cream. Often too busy taking care of her family, she would sometimes forget to pack a lunch and then gorge later in the day, either at a fast food restaurant or convenient store, for a rather large “snack.”

“The problem was that the snack was not just a snack,” Kathy admits. “Usually, I would stop and pick up a burger, fries or chips and candy. I would then go home and make dinner for the family where I would eat another entire meal.”

Over time, Kathy’s weight affected her ability to socialize. Humiliated by her appearance, she disliked attending functions with her husband, afraid that she might embarrass him. Self-conscious and shy, she preferred to skip events that involved eating in public.

“I always felt like people would watch what I was eating and think, ‘She shouldn’t be eating that’ or ‘Look at how big she is,’” Kathy said. “No one ever said these things to me, but I was very critical of myself and how I looked.” As a result, Kathy spent most of her time at home, letting her insecurities overpower her social life.
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Breakfast: Nothing

Lunch: Fried chicken sandwich, fries, large Diet Coke

Dinner: Four slices of pizza, chips and dip, large Diet Coke, ice cream

Snacks: Large fries, Diet Coke, hamburger, chips, four scoops of ice cream, nachos with cheese
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","The turning point","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/B_Kathy5.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "264", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "
For Kathy, the most painful aspect of being overweight was her inability to play an active role in her children’s lives. She felt that her size prevented her from fully enjoying her time with them, as she was not physically able to run, play games or participate in family outings.

“I was so insecure,” Kathy said. “Going swimming and putting on bathing suits are examples of things I would never do when I was heavy.”

But despite years of frustration and heartache, there was one moment that finally pushed Kathy to make a dramatic change:

Kathy’s mother told her she had a “great” photo of Kathy with her son Luke. Excited to see it, Kathy looked at the photo — only to be devastated by what she viewed as a horrible portrait. “I was in disbelief,” Kathy said. “I looked awful! I was wearing my ‘fat pants,’ cropped jeans and a T-shirt on a 90-degree day.”

Determined to put an end to her self-loathing and insecurities, Kathy decided right then and there to change her lifestyle. She had recently seen a commercial for NutriSystem, which seemed to fit her needs, so she called her husband and declared she was going to order the weight-loss program.

“There was no turning back for me. This was either going to work, or I was going to be fat and unhappy for the rest of my life. I knew that I had to succeed!”
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Kathy spent her first two months concentrating on how to fully incorporate the NutriSystem program into her life. “I didn’t worry about exercise,” Kathy said of her initial phase. “I just wanted to learn the program and completely take it in so that I could learn how to eat healthy.”

With support from her family, she stuck to the NutriSytem diet and began switching out her old fatty foods for more nutritious choices. “[My family] was encouraging and when they saw me, they always commented on how I looked, letting me know that they could see a difference. My boys would help out by calling my entrees ‘Mommy’s special food.’” Together with her husband and children, Kathy committed herself to cooking and eating healthy home meals. “It was a great learning experience for not only me, but for my boys as well.”

By the third month, Kathy started to see results and then began walking a mile each day with a colleague during her lunch hour. They slowly added more to their regimen until they walked a mile at lunch and two miles after work. Fully committed, the duo didn’t even let the cold, chilly winter interfere with their goals: “Once the weather got worse, we walked inside in a classroom using the Leslie Sansone: Walk Away the Pounds DVD. Having [a co-worker] to walk with made it very easy to stick to, along with the fact that I was working out at work!”

Motivated by results, Kathy never hit a plateau since she could increase her exercise and change routines as soon she noticed her weight loss slowing. “Soon I was walking three miles a day at work and then doing 30 minutes of core Pilates at home in the evenings.”

Her one guiding motto — “I eat to live, not live to eat” served her well. Today, Kathy no longer lets food dominate her life. “I am in charge now,” she said. “I eat for health and for nourishment. I do not eat just to eat.”

It took Kathy nine months to lose 140 pounds and now, at 156 pounds, she notices a significant change in the way people treat her: Strangers are more respectful, sales people are eager to offer help, and men hold doors open for her. “I am not sure if that is because of my weight, or because today I am confident and I smile a lot more, making my personality more inviting to others,” she said.
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Breakfast: 1/4 cup of granola, low fat yogurt, half a banana, water

Lunch: A large tossed salad with vegetables, NutriSystem lunch entree, low fat yogurt, water

Dinner: A large tossed salad with vegetables (red onions, peppers, celery, cucumbers), low-fat dressing, four ounces of grilled chicken, low-fat yogurt

Snacks: Green apple or a protein bar; 100-calorie bag of popcorn or a sugar free Creamsicle
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Kathy’s family life is far different than what it was just a few years ago. Now, they’re an active group that enjoys running, playing soccer, going to the park, climbing and swimming. Activity is part of their daily lives. “My boys now have a mother who is ready to run and experience life with them, and my husband has a wife that wants to be seen and to socialize with people,” Kathy boasts. “It truly has changed our lives for the better! I love the new me and I love the impact it has had on them.”

Largely due to NutriSystem, Kathy is in full control of her daily intake, having mastered portion control and the importance of nutrition. She also learned to enjoy exercise and even feels “out of sorts” when she’s unable to squeeze in a workout.

“My weight loss has completely changed me. I am more confident and much happier with my life today. I know that I can accomplish anything that I set my mind to. I have accomplished something that anyone can do, but you truly have to put your mind to it and want it bad enough. I know that I am in control of my life now. And this is the best feeling!”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","One family's mission","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/Christmas2005034.hmedium.jpg","","", "sub", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "384", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Two years ago, Marilyn Morrison, 64, and her three daughters — Sherry, 47, Penny, 44 and Annette, 41 — stared at a group picture of themselves in dismay. Appalled, they couldn’t believe how overweight they were. They realized they were a family struggling with severe weight issues, suffering from high blood pressure and cholesterol problems and were dependent on many different medications. Although they all had a history of yo-yo dieting and turning to food for emotional comfort, they were determined to change their habits.

\"We thought ‘How could we have done this?'\" the eldest daughter Sherry said. “How many older, overweight people do you see? We all need to do something about this.”

Together, the four women visited a nutritionist and decided to finally overcome their poor eating habits. “We did it the old-fashioned way,” Sherry said of their commitment to diet and exercise. Turning to one another for help and support, they managed to shed the weight and adopt a new, healthy lifestyle.
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Marilyn Morrison, 64, of Woodlands, Texas, came from a poor family during the post-Depression era. From a young age, she was instilled with the philosophy of eating everything on her plate — a philosophy which carried on into her adult years. As she grew older, she began to constantly seek new fad diets but her efforts were often foiled by her inability to stop binging on fatty foods.

“Eating healthy was unheard of because we were used to cooking fried chicken, pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy, and all the unhealthy stuff,” Marilyn said of her formative years. “We celebrated everything with food. Holidays were always filled with candy, pies, cakes and every ‘good’ food you could think of.”

For Marilyn, eating was a fun distraction — a simple solution to boredom. She was happy to eat and to provide big, festive dinners for her daughters. “Growing up, we didn't have a lot and maybe I feared not having enough for my family, so I always made sure we had a lot of food in our house. I enjoyed serving my friends and family. I would always cook a big meal for supper.”

But as Marilyn entered her 40s, she noticed she had a tougher time keeping the weight off. No matter what diet she tried, she couldn’t shake off the pounds. She would lose 50 or 60 pounds, but then gain more it back plus more. “I began to feel self-conscious about my weight, especially being out in public. I didn't have energy to play with my grandkids or great-grandkids and that bothered me.”

Not being able to play an active role in her family’s life finally motivated Marilyn to seriously pursue weight loss. “I realized I had to do something about my life and my weight in order to be around for my family,” Marilyn said. “It had to be a lifestyle change if I was going to lose the weight and keep it off this time.”
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Sherry Wheaton, a 47-year-old secretary, from Galveston, Texas, recalls a very loving and carefree childhood, one without rules or discipline. Sherry ate whatever she pleased — fried foods, snacks or junk food. But as she grew older, she started noticing the ill effects of her diet habits, and it wasn’t long before she consistently monitored her weight. “My mom was always on a diet and did a lot of yo-yo dieting,” Sherry said. “So I was programmed to follow in her footsteps.”

Sherry began trying various fad diets and routinely lost weight, then gained it all back. And although she was never more than 40 pounds overweight, she was dissatisfied with her size. “I didn't like the way being overweight made me feel. And the older I got, the more weight became a problem.”

For Sherry, food was used for comfort and control. During bouts of sadness or anxiety, she turned to food to heal her emotional wounds. “As a family, we ate when we were happy, when we were sad and for all reasons in between. My eating habits started from when I was very young. We had no limits or portion control at any time in our lives and this led to no control as an adult.” Along with her siblings, Sherry consumed large buffet meals, followed by snacking after supper — roughly three or four times a week.

Without portion control, Sherry ate excessive amounts of unhealthy food until she gained a significant amount of weight. Self-conscious and ashamed, she felt unable to stop her eating or to control herself in other areas of her life. “Being overweight began to affect my goals because I had no energy to do anything.”


For Sherry, the most painful aspect was that she felt miserable and unhappy with herself. “No matter what I wore and how much I tried to look nice, I always felt ugly inside.” But despite spending years feeling miserable about her appearance, it took a drastic health scare to scare her into shape.

One day, Sherry felt she was having a heart attack and raced to the emergency room. Even though it wasn’t serious, she knew she couldn’t continue living in perpetual fear. “It was my wake-up call,” Sherry said. “I have three children and I realized if I wanted to be around for them I had to make a change.”
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Penny Russell, a 44-year-old administrative assistant from Spring, Texas, has fond, happy memories of a childhood filled with sumptuous meals and desserts. Penny recalls her family’s preoccupation with food — they were constantly planning their next meals. “Food was always a topic of conversation in our family,” Penny said. “Both of my grandmothers were wonderful cooks and loved to bake, and of course I loved to eat.”

But the great food came with a hefty price: “I have always had to watch my weight as far as I can remember. I am not really sure where the bad eating habits came from. I know when I was young we were always taught we had to finish all of the food on our plate.” As Penny got older, that mindset never really changed and she, along with her sisters, held onto that food philosophy.

During junior high school, Penny was a bit overweight and very much aware of it. Intimidated by her skinnier peers, Penny became self-conscious and anxious about her size. Although she had an active social life, she was severely insecure. “I felt I had to be skinny to have friends and for the guys to notice me.”

Penny recalls one hurtful incident in which she asked a friend to inquire about a boy she was interested in. When her friend returned with her crush’s response, she was devastated. “He told her he would like me if I lost some weight. That broke my heart.” Such encounters only fueled Penny’s poor eating habits. She would often skip meals for several days, and then binge for the remainder of the week. “I felt like I was always on a roller coaster with my weight. It was a constant thing — up and down with my weight. I felt like I could not be who I really was when I was heavy.”

Penny’s meals often consisted of donuts or fast food — hamburgers or fried chicken — and she couldn’t resist buying a candy bar whenever she walked into a store. “When I would look in the mirror I would cry a lot of times.”

For a while, Penny assumed weight loss was a hopeless cause. There were, however, moments when she was painfully aware of her weight and desired to change: “When I was around people I would not let anyone know my weight bothered me, but inside I was dying,” she said. “I had been single for so long and wanted a husband so badly. I had been through several very painful relationships after my divorce and I did not want to get hurt anymore. I really think I used my weight as a wall not to get hurt. I figured no one would ever want me heavy, so I was sure to not get hurt again.”

Penny gave up on many of her goals, in part because of her weight. She simply didn’t believe she could achieve her goals if she was obese. “My heart’s desire was to be married one day and take missions teams over to Kenya, but in the shape I was in it would never happen. The most painful thing for me was seeing all of my friends and people I knew getting married and living full happy healthy lives. I wanted that so badly.”

One day, Penny finally decided to buy a scale — and she was shocked when she read the number: 235 pounds. She lay on her bed and sobbed, bemoaning the hard truth that she had let herself gain so much weight. “I called my mother and told her I had to do something. I knew if I ever wanted to fulfill my dreams I had to be in better shape and get the weight off.”
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Annette Halbrook, 40, a company administrator from Woodlands, Texas, was a slightly pudgy child who battled image issues since as far back as she can remember. In fact, she recalls being asked to drop a few pounds when she made her junior high cheerleading team. “Looking back, I realize now that I was not a fat person at that time, but I believed I was,” Annette said. “I was a cheerleader in a large high school, president of my class and a homecoming queen nominee[but] somehow, I still thought I was not as pretty or thin as the others.”

Annette traces back her dependency on food to her family’s love of eating. To her, it seemed as if every event, vacations, birthdays, and holidays centered around food. “My entire family has always loved food and to eat it freely!” Annette said of her early eating habits. “I was taught to clean my plate. Whatever was served and tasted good, that is what I ate.”

Emotionally, Annette used food as a \"drug\" to calm herself. During difficult times, she would eat to ease her pain. “As stress would increase, my portions and appetite would increase.” But the more she consumed, the more upset she became. It soon affected her marriage, relationships, and her attitude towards everything in her life. “I went from being a dreamer, full of life, to a person who loved to act crazy and have fun to a person who was now completely inward, depressed, stressed out, and miserable woman.”

During a mission trip to Kenya, Annette hit her highest weight — 235 pounds. While touring with her group, she realized she was unable to walk long distances or keep up with her peers — she would get tired after climbing a small hill. “It was at that time that I knew I had to do something about my weight. We did a lot of physical work and I was not able to do much. I had to change!”
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Sherry, Penny, Annette and Marilyn began journaling their daily food intake to better understand how much they were consuming. They focused on incorporating healthier foods into their diet and leaning on one another to stay motivated. From counting calories to slowly increasing their exercising regimens, they did it together. “I think the thing that helped me the most was doing it with my mom and sisters,” Penny said. “We were a support to each other. Plus knowing I had to go once a month to weigh in front of someone else helped me a lot.”

But not everyone appreciated their weight loss efforts. Their extended family missed the old days, when they would eat for hours at big suppers. “They wanted Maw Maw's chicken and dumplings and fried chicken at family dinners,” Annette said. “But they soon learned that we were on this way of eating forever, and my mother would still fix them some of the family traditional foods on occasion.”

Today, the four women have lost an impressive amount of weight. Marilyn lost 105 and now weighs 140; Sherry lost 70 pounds and now weighs 140; Penny lost 110 pounds and now weighs 145; and Annette lost 105 pounds and now weighs in at 135 pounds. In total, they lost 390 pounds.
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Now, the four women agree they are far happier, healthier and less anxious. Marilyn regained her health and no longer needs to rely on blood pressure medication. “I can do anything I want with my family,” says Marilyn. “I can sit down on the floor with my great-grandkids and play or go outside with them and play — it's wonderful the way I feel.”

Now fully in control of her eating, Sherry feels confident enough to do anything she pleases. “I now have the energy to play with my kids, to be there for my husband, to clean my house, to work and do the things I've been dreaming of for the past few years,” Sherry said. She now hopes to go back to college and pursue her creative interests.

With three grandchildren to tend to, Penny plans to live a long healthy life to see them grow up. “I know if I eat the right foods and exercise it will be a big part of achieving that goal.” With her new diet and exercise routine, she feels 20 years younger and can easily crawl around on the floor and play with her grandkids.

Annette’s approach to food has completely changed. Now outgoing and confident, she plans on opening an orphanage later this year. “I am on a brand new path to a long and healthy life. I turned 40 last year and feel younger everyday. I will do all the things I have dreamed of doing.”
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Sissy Lusk, 43, of Canton, Ga., dealt with her size since she was just a child. Having grown up in a family concerned with weight — her mother was overweight and often used that commonality to connect with her — Sissy said that from a young age, she thought dieting was a life necessity. Soon enough, food became \"an obsession.\"

An introvert who was often embarrassed of her size, Sissy kept to herself during her childhood and hoped no one would \"notice\" her. \"[My] teachers even had a conference with my parents because I was too quiet,\" Sissy said. \"I made up for my self image issues by making perfect grades.\"

Socially, Sissy withdrew and had difficulties moving past the shame of her body. She recalls that her school bus driver called her \"Biggen\" — a reference to her size — each morning. Humiliated, but too shy to react, Sissy simply avoided confronting the name-calling. \"I was so embarrassed that I made my mom start driving me to school because I didn't want anyone to hear him.\"

As she got older, Sissy used food to soothe her emotional troubles — and the pounds quickly added up. Over time, Sissy was unable to handle normal everyday activities and her life revolved around accommodating her weight: she couldn't fly because seats were too small; she couldn't eat in restaurants that had booths; and she couldn't even tie her own shoe without losing her breath. At one point, Sissy even stopped attending her daughter's school events because she feared her size would humiliate her child.

\"There is so much that you can't do when you are morbidly obese,\" Sissy said. \"I always knew I had to lose weight. The problem was that I was dieting, not changing my ways.\"

Professionally, Sissy's weight held her back. She often dreamt of becoming a school teacher, but she never finished college because she refused to take the physical education class. \"I quit after three years of college. It's pretty sad.\"

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Sissy used food for emotional comfort, often when plagued by depression, anger or stress. \"What better way to fix all that, than to turn to something that made me happy — food,\" Sissy said. To heal the anxiety, she consumed abnormally large amounts of junk food, but it usually only added to her stress. It was a vicious cycle she didn't know how to stop.

\"I loved to eat and still do. I had to learn to figure out why I was eating when I wasn't hungry and fix the problem with a real solution. For example, if I am stressed, a hot bath or listening to music will relax me — not food.\"

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A constant snacker, Sissy would always have something in her mouth — sometimes, even healthy options like nuts — but it would be a huge amount. \"I also bought lots of fat-free products like the Entenmanns's desserts but I would eat several at a time.\"

Although she was constantly concerned about her health and appearance, the immediate satisfaction of eating generally prevailed. Sissy was always on the hunt for the easy, fad diet to help shed the weight, but she'd often end up binging halfway through her effort. \"My routine [was to] find a quick fix diet on Monday, binge all weekend, go on the diet from one to 10 days or so and then begin to feel so deprived that I quit and binged on everything that I had been missing,\" Sissy said. \"I was always worried; in fact I believe I dieted my way all the way up to 345.\"
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Breakfast: Several McDonald's Egg McMuffins

Lunch: Burger with fries, salad with mayonnaise or cheese-based dressing, bread, and a Diet Coke

Dinner: An entire three course meal at an Italian or Mexican restaurant

Snacks: Pizza, nachos, chips and ice cream
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Sissy finally decided to change her lifestyle after a humiliating and hurtful incident with a stranger — a young child.

While shopping in a store, a boy approached Sissy and frankly asked her why she didn't lose weight. Shocked, Sissy tried to ignore the painful comment, but the child's mother insisted he apologize. A tantrum ensued and the entire store's customers looked on as the child coldly apologized and repeated \"I'm sorry I said you were fat.\"

Emotionally, Sissy was a wreck — and she decided it was time to stop living in shame, and instead, take care of her health and self-confidence. \"I was tired of having the scale rule my mood for the day.\"
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Sissy joined Weight Watchers and began exercising each day on a stationary bike and then by walking short distances in her neighborhood. She slowly increased her walks by adding a mailbox every so often, and eventually she walked the entire five-mile neighborhood.

\"I could not have done any of this without my Weight Watchers meetings,\" Sissy said. \"Everyone is so excited for the other's success and I loved the idea of being able to eat whatever I wanted as long as I didn't go over my points.\" Eventually, Sissy stopped craving unhealthy foods and learned to adopt a leaner, lower-calorie diet. \"It forced me to eat healthier naturally.\"

Sissy also found the motivation to keep going with help from her husband, who pushed her to stick to her diet and exercise. \"I always tell folks that he stuck with me through 'thick and thin.' My motto is 'don't let a lapse become a collapse.' You always have a new moment right now to make a difference.\"

Sissy lost 215 pounds and now weighs in at 130, boasting a slim size four.
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Breakfast: Weight Watchers smoothie, yogurt with fruit and Fiber One cereal

Lunch: Six-inch Subway sandwich of turkey without mayonnaise and cheese

Dinner: Veggie burger with baked fries, or whole grain pasta and vegetables

Snacks: 94% fat free popcorn, fruit, yogurt or vegetables dipped in salsa
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Although still a food lover, Sissy has mastered portion control and finally understands the nutritional value of food. Today, people would sooner call her a \"health nut\" than an overeater — she now has a successful, happy career with Weight Watchers, helping others to reach their potential. \"Sad to say, but people do treat you differently when you aren't obese,\" Sissy said of her new appearance. \"There is more respect and admiration from others.\"

Sissy no longer lets food control her, and discovering her new talent and strength greatly helped her self-confidence. \"I love being me. I know I am a much happier person to be around and I don't seem to stress over the little things anymore.\"

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Danielle Carter, a 28-year-old real estate specialist from Oceanport, N.J., didn’t always have weight issues. An athletic, social and happy child, Danielle had a “great childhood,” filled with soccer, softball and basketball. She only began putting on pounds after having been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian disease, a hormonal imbalance that induces female obesity, just before her senior year of high school. Only a teenager, Danielle — at 5 feet 3 inches — gained 50 pounds in just a few short months.

“Although my disease may have contributed, it was really just the start of my out-of-control weight gain,” Danielle said. “As I continued to gain more weight, I changed who I was as a person — my self-confidence decreased. Gaining weight affected my life in so many ways and to this day I am still dealing with many of those issues.”

Ashamed of her changing body, Danielle began limiting after-school activities and cut down on socializing. She felt too embarrassed to spend time with family and friends, and dreaded attending special occasions like birthday parties or holidays. And previously enjoyable activities, such as shopping at the mall, lost their allure.

“I could never find clothing that fit me,” Danielle said of her teenage frustrations. “I would have to order my clothes and hope something would fit — not even look nice — just fit. I still remember how much I wanted to have more fun or be more active but was too embarrassed and self-conscious.”

Danielle’s insecurities followed her into the work force, where her poor self-image plagued her. She feared applying for new jobs — not because she wasn’t qualified, but because she didn’t want to deal with strangers’ criticism and cruel looks. “When I was heavy, people either stared at me, judged me, made fun of me or worst of all ignored me. I was a ghost existing in life — I wasn’t living.”

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Danielle never consciously noticed her daily intake; she often overate without ever realizing how many calories and how much fat she consumed. “I viewed food as nothing more then what it was — food,” she said. “I didn’t emotionally eat. I just overate.”

Her binges generally consisted of high-calorie junk food, but sometimes even healthy food — it wasn’t so much the actual content as it was the portions. She ate beyond the recommended intake for someone her size.

“I come from an Italian family [that had] ridiculous amounts of food at every meal and live in a society where it seems like food is the center of everything,” Danielle said. “When I was overweight, I was living to eat instead of eating to live. Even when I was no longer hungry, I kept on eating because it tasted good.” With little self-control or supervision, it was often easier for Danielle to simply ignore her issues than deal with what was quickly affecting her health.

“I was never strong enough to stop.” Danielle said. “And the more that comes on, the worse you feel about it.” In response, she often felt the need to overcompensate in other areas of her life: She took on too much work at jobs, purchased a condo at 21, then bought a house at 23 — just to show others that she could handle a challenge. “I had to prove that I was more than fat mush.”
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Danielle consumed most of her meals at fast-food and chain restaurants, and gradually put on more weight. At her heaviest, he admits she ate two McDonald’s super-sized value meals along with a few fatty side orders. “I basically ate enough at one meal for probably two days worth of my calorie intake now,” Danielle said. Although she was at first conscious of the large portion sizes — over time, she became accustomed to it and thought “it was normal.”"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'Before' daily intake","","","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "
Breakfast: Pancakes, two bagels, eggs, bacon, toast, potatoes, and a large bowl of cereal or muffins

Lunch: Salad with meat, cheese, pasta and regular creamy dressing; burger, pizza, BLT sandwich, and a chicken salad sandwich with regular mayonnaise and bacon

Dinner: Pasta, sub sandwich, pizza, Chinese food, and hot dogs

Snacks: Ice cream, candy, chips, fruit, or ice pops
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As the years passed, Danielle became more aware of how her size was “literally weighing” her down. Having become more hermetic since her high school days, she refused to join her friends in normal, social events.

“It broke my heart that I couldn’t shop [with friends],” she said. “Nothing fit me — not clothes, not jewelry, not shoes and not even pocketbooks because the straps were too small for my arms.”

Danielle also refused to hit the nightlife scene because she feared being the heaviest person at the club. She even went so far as to “plan ahead” during public outings; she would mentally examine any situation in which she could possibly humiliate herself — like breaking a small movie seat or flimsy, plastic outdoor furniture at a BBQ. “Every day I felt like a fish out of water, gasping for air and crying inside just to be normal.”

But Danielle finally felt the urge to drastically change her lifestyle after an embarrassing encounter at her doctor’s office.

At 25, Danielle had her first physical in seven years and dreaded the moment the nurse began weighing her. “The nurse smiled as she started to push the metal weight further over to the right,” she said. “But I could read the scale — I knew what it said and I saw her smile drift from her face as she quietly wrote down 375 pounds.”

Although her physical was less terrifying than she expected (she had rather healthy cholesterol, blood pressure and sugar), it was how she exited the doctor’s office that had a big impact on her self-image. As she dressed and hopped off the examination table, she accidentally slipped on the floor. She screamed out in pain and the doctor rushed to her aid, exclaiming, “If you needed help getting off the table, you should have just asked.”

After being whisked away to fill out an accident report, Danielle immediately broke down crying. She was humiliated by the doctor’s reaction: “Why was it that the doctor assumed I fell because I was incapable of getting off the table myself? Why was that — just because I was heavy? I was mortified.”
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Danielle extensively researched different diets and programs until she ultimately decided on NutriSystem, which best fit her needs. “I recognized that my largest problem was portion control,” she said of her eating habits, which weren’t triggered by stress, depression or any other negative emotion. “I simply enjoyed food and didn’t know when to stop eating something that tasted good.”

In February 2006, Danielle ordered her first NutriSystem shipment and within a few weeks, began walking slowly every day on a treadmill until she eased her way into a routine. “[At first] I thought my legs were going to give out, my lungs were going to collapse and that I could never get on it again.” But she continued to increase her time, speed and incline until she exercised so frequently that she tore a hole in the treadmill belt — only six months later!

“Eventually my 10 minutes of treadmill hell had turned into walking and running 16 miles a day at a level 10 incline, split between two workouts — in the morning before work and again in the evening after.” Between constantly increasing her workout routines and depending on the variety of NutriSystem meals, Danielle never hit a plateau. She lost 248 pounds and now weighs in at just 127 pounds.

“My mom told me, ‘Once you start losing weight, you are going to be a speeding train that no one can stop.’ Acknowledging all the small accomplishments that got me to the finish line was the biggest support system,” Danielle said.
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Breakfast: Egg whites with fat free ricotta cheese and 97% fat free ham or one cup of Special K cereal and half a cup skim milk along with one serving of fruit

Lunch: Salad with low fat dressing; sushi; or soup

Dinner: A healthy portion of fish or chicken, with vegetables or whole grain rice

Snacks: Fruit, granola, plain nuts, sugar-free ice pops
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For Danielle, each small goal was met with more enthusiasm for the next bigger one. “ For every size in clothing I dropped, I cried in happiness and every time I was able to increase my workout, I was so proud of myself,” she said. “I am now a really fit person, able to buckle my seatbelt and lower the steering wheel in my car.”

Now far happier and confident, Danielle enjoys previously stressful outings like shopping and eating with friends. “It’s nice to shop in stores, go anywhere without having to plan out the logistics of ‘will I fit’ and just being noticed in a good way.”

Although she sticks to a healthy, low-calorie diet, Danielle refuses to deprive herself of treats or fatty, desired foods. “You always have those days when you want a slice of pizza or burger,” she said. “I just limit those items and when I do eat them, I [use] portion control. On those days, I compensate for the extra calories with some extra time working out — whether it is on the treadmill or other physical activities.”

Today, Danielle realizes that food is obviously a necessity, but that it doesn’t have to consume your life. “I view food for what it is — fuel for my body. I now choose to fuel myself in a much healthier manner because I am enjoying life so much more,” she said.” “I truly feel like I am living my life and not just existing.”

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Mary Rosner, a 54-year-old realtor’s assistant from Spokane, Wash., suffered from body-image issues since she was 6 years old. Having moved frequently as a child, Mary had difficulty adjusting to new areas and making friends, an issue which left her with a small social circle during junior high and high school. “[When my family] moved to Pennsylvania, my Dad told us we weren’t going to be there [long] so I decided not to make any friends,” Mary recalled. “It was too hard to leave them.”

As she grew up, Mary took solace in eating. By the time she was 13 years old, she felt overweight, an image reinforced by her parents' constant food monitoring. For young Mary, it only made her want to rebel. “I remember thinking, ‘You think this is fat? I’ll show you fat.’ And as I got older, I really did start to get obese.”

At school, Mary often felt the effects of her weight — both socially and physically. Her school didn’t carry her uniform size and gym class was torturous: she couldn’t fit into the gym clothing or perform most of the exercises. “I couldn’t run or climb the ropes or do a push up or a lot of the things that we were supposed to be able to do,” Mary said. “I was just too heavy.”

In addition to differing from her peers, she also faced scrutiny from strangers. She remembers one occasion, when she wore tight shorts, that a woman exclaimed in a snotty tone, “I don’t know why some people even go out of the house!”

These situations continued as grew older and entered the work force. While working as a kitchen cook in a casino, a position opened in the establishment’s steakhouse — a job Mary very much wanted, but her weight held her back. “The chef told me I couldn’t have the job because I wouldn’t fit in the kitchen.”
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Growing up, food always took center stage in Mary’s life. At family celebrations, social activities, or anytime she felt bored or uncomfortable — food became an “obsession.” One time, she ate the entire icing off a cake her mother hid because it was for company. Over time, her mother rationed portions because she feared Mary’s uncontrollable urges. “I felt like an addict,” Mary said. “I would eat one thing just to get to the next. If there was food out there, I wanted it.”


Mary describes her former needs as if there was “a beast inside” that demanded to be fed. But after giving in to her urges, Mary was immediately panged with guilt — but not enough to stop the vicious cycle.
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Mary admits she lacked self-control when it came to food — any food. “I just ate whenever, wherever and as much as I wanted all the time,” she said. “I didn’t have an ‘I’m full’ button. I’d eat until it was gone, and then go look for something else.”

Mary would frequent fast-food joints, and order enough for two people: Two big sandwiches, two orders of fries — and then a milkshake and Diet Coke so that cashiers would assume she was sharing it with someone else. “I’d eat it all,” she said.

It didn’t help that Mary worked in restaurants for 16 years, from the age of 16 until 32. With access to different foods and desserts, she snacked throughout the day on the menus’ high-calorie items. “I told myself that I had to make sure it tasted good. Of course I didn’t need to eat an entire portion to find that out.”
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Breakfast: Doughnuts and cinnamon rolls

Lunch: Double cheeseburgers with bacon, large fries, chocolate malt, and a fried pie

Dinner: Pizza (with everything but anchovies) and a Diet Coke

Snacks: Peanut M&Ms, popcorn, and peanuts
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Emotionally, Mary was tired of strangers’ reactions — the way they would quickly divert their eyes so that “they don’t have to see you.” And physically, she suffered from the weight of her size. She was unable to walk up a hill or even bend over to tie her shoes without feeling out of breath. Although she felt a need to lose weight since she was 6 years old, she never quite felt motivated to commit to change. She had tried various diets but none were practical or very effective.

Mary finally found the motivation to change with a push from her daughter, who urged her to join Weight Watchers. “I finally agreed to go with her mostly to get her to shut up,” Mary admits.

They both joined Weight Watchers, and they soon found themselves encouraging one another and trying to compete to lose the excess weight. They supported one another in throwing out high-calorie foods and cooking healthy alternatives instead. ““We didn’t live in the same house, so as one of us found a new low-point food or a recipe that was awesome, we would share it with each other.”
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Mary followed the Weight Watcher program and eventually incorporated long walks with her husband into her daily routine. “We started out with a very short distance and worked up to two miles,” Mary said. “We did that in the morning before work.” By walking each day and sticking to a low-calorie, low- carbohydrate diet, Mary lost over 40 pounds. She then joined a gym to work on strength training and began exercising on a recumbent bike.

In just two years, she lost 140 pounds, at which point she graduated to a personal trainer. “[The trainer] was evil and did her job well. I no longer see her regularly but occasionally when I need a refresher,” Mary said.

Mart hit several plateaus but admits they were self-imposed. “I wasn’t being honest with myself,” she said. “I tasted things as if they didn’t matter. I noticed that my body seemed to slow down in the weight, but I just kept at it. I had come too far to go back.”

One motto that helped Mary reach her goal was “If it’s not yours, don’t touch it.” Every Wednesday, her office offered three dozen assorted doughnuts, and it was this one motto that helped her exhibit self-control. “Now my eating is just a matter of negotiating how much and when... Ninety-nine percent of my success has been because of mental changes that I have made and still continue to make.” Mary lost a total of 174 pounds and now weighs in at 171.
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Breakfast: Six oz. of non-fat yogurt sweetened with Splenda, one scoop of protein powder, one small banana, half a cup of high fiber cereal and coffee

Lunch: One cup of homemade lentil soup and a whole wheat bagel with fake butter

Dinner: Salad with spinach and fat free dressing, toast, three oz. of skinless, baked chicken breast, and fresh vegetables (mushrooms, carrots, celery, red onion, radishes)

Snacks: Water, one cup of vegetables; one cup of grapes, one string cheese, fresh strawberries, or 94 percent fat-free microwave popcorn sprinkled with a packet of sweetener
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For Mary, one of the main benefits of her weight loss is no longer dealing with uncomfortable situations. She recalls her first “aha!” moment — when she didn’t need a seatbelt extender anymore on flights. ““I could put both armrests down , then sit down and I was comfortable!” Mary said. “Waiting for the stewardess to finish the seat belt instructions so she could come down the aisle, swinging the extender, had always been embarrassing for me.”

The second time occurred when she visited her favorite restaurant and simply sat down. She was accustomed to standing by the table; acting like it didn’t bother her as the hostess would switch her chair for a bigger one without armrests. Every time, she was mortified, but she put on a brave face. Now, she no longer needed the special assistance. “I sat there, realizing what had happened, with tears streaming down my face. It was pretty cool.”

Today, Mary is in full control of her intake. She eats six times a day, including healthy, low-calorie snacks. “I eat with a cocktail fork and a baby spoon, even at work,” Mary said of her new eating habits. “The more bites I can take the ‘more food’ I am eating.” Mary also goes to the gym five days a week, rising each morning at 3:30am so that she can “get it all in.”

Of her progress, Mary realizes it was a long, hard-fought journey. “I didn't get it overnight. There isn't a secret, there’s no magic pill, no quick answer. I had no idea that my mind and personality could handle the changes that would come because of the weight loss.” Now a strong, healthy and confident individual, she doesn’t believe in the word “never.” Instead, she feels she has the tools and determination to pursue anything she desires.

“The world has opened up for me and now I feel like a kid with so many possibilities in front of me. Who knows what I’ll want to try next!”
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Cari Hartman, a 34-year-old sales representative from Muskegon, Mich., recalls struggling with her eating habits since childhood. A product of two “very different people” — an overweight mother and a thin, active father — who divorced when she was only 2 years old, Cari lived off fast meals, like fish sticks, hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. Her parents were simply too busy to prepare proper meals and at age five, she already weighed 75 pounds.

As she grew up, Cari began to feel the ill effects of her food choices. She gained a substantial amount of weight and differed from her slim peers, who often ridiculed her. “In elementary school, when it was time to go shopping for back-to-school clothes, I was only being able to go to Sears because they had the ‘Pretty Plus’ department,” Cari said. “And when I was in the eighth grade, one of my classmates signed my yearbook with, ‘Have a great summer, Shamu.’ That became my nickname for the next few years in high school.”

Socially, she felt insecure and restricted from social activities such as shopping since she could only shop at Lane Bryant or the plus-size sections of department stores. “I could always hear the comments under people’s breath about my size or could see them laugh and point at me as I waddled on by,” Cari said.

The teasing, sneers and cruel taunts extended into high school, where the outgoing Cari faced social obstacles in extracurricular activities. Although she was on the yearbook staff, prom committee, marching band and other groups, her weight always became an issue. And sometimes, it wasn’t just her fellow peers, but also adults.

“One of the volunteer moms [for the school band] said, ‘You should just quit because we are never going to have anyone as big as you in band again and buying your big uniform is a waste of the school’s money.’ That was hurtful.”

As a defense mechanism, Cari took to comedy for attention and to ease the pain of her noticeable weight. “I tried very hard to be that obnoxious girl who would do anything to get a laugh out of people,” she said. “I figured that if people were laughing with me at least they couldn’t be laughing at me. [But even though] I had a close group of friends who accepted me into a group, I was the ‘fat friend.’”

When Cari graduated high school she weighed more than 270 pounds, and her weight fluctuated for the next few years. At one point, she lost 90 pounds but gained it back shortly thereafter.

By the time she was 31 years old, she tipped the scales at 307 pounds — and she suffered from depression. Usually sad, she rarely let others know of her discontent, as she was known for her outgoing personality. “I longed to be skinny like my friends. I longed to fit in with them, but wasn’t willing to do anything to help myself get there.”
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Cari used food to pacify an array of emotions; she ate when she felt anxious, bored or overcome with feelings of emptiness or sadness. “Food was my best friend,” Cari explained. “It was always there for me, never judging me like others.”

Although she despised her eating habits, she never hated food. In fact, she was always excited for every meal — a gusto that remains to this day. “I usually looked forward to it. However, there eventually came a time when I realized that it wasn’t right to eat everything in sight, and I became ashamed of the things that I had been doing.”

Looking back, Cari believes her issues stem from her mother, who also took to eating to ease boredom and negative feelings. She remembers her mother lounging around, eating an entire bag of potato chips with dip, followed by a chocolate bar. In contrast, her father tried to force her to eat healthy meals and learn portion control, claiming that one more helping would make her “end up fat, just like my mother,” but his remarks were lost on young Cari.

“I spat out my vegetables in my napkin, trying to get away with not eating them. Oftentimes I would just swallow them whole as opposed to eating them since I hated them so much!”
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Cari can’t precisely recall how much she consumed each day, but knows that she was constantly grazing — always snacking on chips or other high-calorie snacks and fast food dinners. “I’d walk past the refrigerator and take out leftovers, thinking, ‘Oh I’m just going to have one bite.’ That one bite turned into finishing the entire container.”

Her poor eating habits escalated when she moved out on her own at the age of 21. Finally, she was able to eat what she pleased for dinner — and if that meant a box of cookies, so be it. “I would eat in front of the TV, in my car, anywhere but at the table,” Cari said.

Her diet gradually caught up with her, when her doctor informed her that she had high blood pressure and cholesterol. Tired of the constant criticism, Cari eventually switched doctors — to one who didn’t blame her medical issues on her weight. And although witnessing her mother’s struggle with health left her concerned, it was not enough to force a drastic change.

“I watched my mom go from being heavy to very heavy, and finally to the point where she had become morbidly obese and had to have gastric bypass to avoid death — yet this didn’t stop me.”
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Breakfast: McDonald’s bacon egg and cheese biscuit, two hash browns, large Diet Coke; Two Pop-Tarts, sandwich bag of dry sugar cereal, and a Diet Coke

Lunch: Deep-fried chicken sandwich with cheese and ranch dressing, large fries or onion rings with ranch dressing and a Diet Coke

Dinner: Macaroni and cheese; large bowl of buttered pasta with garlic salt

Snacks: Chips, Little Debbie snack, ice cream, dry sugar cereal, peanut butter cups
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For Cari, the most painful aspect was people’s constant criticism and mumbled sneers. “The old phrase of ‘you have such a pretty face, but...’ I couldn’t stand to hear that one more time,” Cari said. And physically, her back and knees suffered from the weight of her body, and she could hardly climb a flight of stairs without getting winded.

But the moment she realized she needed to change her lifestyle was the day after her 31st birthday, when she stepped on her doctor’s scale and read an alarming number: 307 pounds. Shocked and disgusted, Cari couldn’t believe how big she had become.

“I sat there and couldn’t tell you a thing the doctor said that day, All I kept thinking was that if I didn’t make a change right then and there, that I was going to be headed down the same path that my mom. I just couldn’t allow myself to get to that point,” Cari said.

Just a few days later, Cari joined a gym and made the commitment to shed the excess weight and regain her health.
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Even once Cari made the decision to join the gym, she still faced strangers’ jeers. The first day she started working out, a salesperson approached her with an insensitive question: You’ve been a member here a few times before, so why do you think this time is going to be any different? Cari thought to herself, “Well, you jerk, it’s because I have never been this fat before!” Angry and frustrated, the remark only helped fuel Cari’s determination to get in shape, to prove she could stay committed. She worked out 30 minutes a day, slowly increasing her regimen, and lost 15 pounds in just the first month.

Cari began bringing in pre-packed lunches and cooking meals at home instead of relying on fast food. She also gave up her “beloved” Diet Coke in favor of water, threw out tempting snacks from her kitchen, and opted for healthier low-calorie foods while still permitting treats every so often. “If I wanted a piece of pizza, I would allow myself that — but only from one of my favorite places,” Cari said. “I wouldn’t settle for just anything if it wasn’t worth it. I think by not depriving yourself, it’s much easier to stay on track and eat in moderation.”

Cari shed pounds quickly by setting small goals, starting with 10-pound intervals, which gave her the confidence to keep reaching the next level. “If I would have said three years ago that I wanted to lose 123 pounds, I would never have stuck with it,” Cari said. “Because I set smaller goals and was proud of the fact that I had reached them, I just kept going!” Cari lost more than 120 pounds and now weighs in at 184.
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Breakfast: Three egg whites, two pieces of high-fiber toast, turkey bacon, coffee, or high fiber cereal and cottage cheese

Lunch: Salad loaded with romaine lettuce, spinach, green and red peppers, carrots, cucumbers, cooked shredded chicken and dressing on the side

Dinner: Broiled chicken or pork tenderloin, vegetables, and a serving of brown rice, roasted sweet potato, or couscous

Snacks: Yogurt, hummus with baked pita chips, apple or banana with natural peanut butter, smoked almonds, or a 100-calorie bag of popcorn
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Today, Cari views food as something she can “have fun with,” without sacrificing nutrition. She spends hours watching the Food Network — often while at the gym — and enjoys deconstructing fattening recipes into healthier, leaner ones.

When it comes to food shopping, she now vigilantly checks every label for nutritional information and makes sure to refrain from splurging on meals out. “I am never afraid to ask a server to prepare something special for me and I always ask for my dressing on the side,” Cari said of her new eating habits.

“I can’t believe how much better I feel about myself. My health has improved and my blood pressure and cholesterol are healthy without the aid of medications.” With her health in check, Cari shows no signs of slowing down: Last summer, she finished in the top 15 of a 5K walk, and this year she intends on running it. “I have overcome fears and obstacles that I never thought I could, and would have never attempted had it not been for my weight loss.”
"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array(""," Mandy Tidwell","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/CopyofDCP_1162.hmedium.jpg","","", "sub", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "364", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "Mandy Tidwell, a 36-year-old computer consultant from Charlotte, N.C., recalls struggling with her weight since childhood. Her earliest memories include cruel teasing and emotional bullying from her peers and classmates. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t aware of my weight -- I’ve always felt like I was heavier than those around me,” Mandy said. “I was teased a lot in school and I think it made me a very cautious person, especially when meeting new people.”

Insecure and ashamed of her appearance, Mandy withdrew from social activities and retreated to academics and hobbies. Throughout her school years, she focused her energy on what felt she could “control,” namely, her grades. “School was one area where I received approval and positive attention,” she said of her high school experience. But the less she socialized, the more she found herself alone in sedentary activities. “I would read for hours in my room and avoided anything that took place outdoors or involved exercise.”

Having grown up in a family with weight issues, Mandy was often the focus of her parents’ attention. “My parents were very concerned about me not repeating some of their mistakes,” Mandy said. “But it seemed the more they tried to help me lose weight, the more weight I gained. I’m not sure if it was just childish rebellion or a reaction to pressure.”

Over the years, Mandy suffered emotionally from the humiliation and physical hardships of her weight. She often found herself apologizing for her body size after overhearing cruel remarks from strangers, requesting airplane seatbelt extenders or breaking furniture in public. One specific incident stands out: Mandy attended a baseball game and overheard a person behind her exclaim “The worst thing that ever happened to this country was the ‘all- you-can-eat’ buffet.” For Mandy, such embarrassing experiences only heightened the pain of her weight. “You don't want to hear things so you try not to listen.”

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Since Mandy didn’t have much of a social life throughout her teen years, “everything” revolved around food. It comforted her during bouts of sadness, anger, depression or even boredom. “I think this behavior was prevalent around me and just something I unconsciously picked up,” Mandy explained. “The more I tried to break the habit, the worse it got.”"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Eating habits","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Personal/Raphael/London2004055.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "273", "364", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "
Mandy lived on an extreme diet of processed food — mainly greasy take-out and high-calorie junk food like ice cream or chips. She never cooked at home and generally shunned all vegetables. “I ate way too much and always the wrong things,” Mandy said. “There were times when I ate an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s for dinner.”

Although she was aware of her unhealthy eating habits, she lacked the courage to give up her emotional dependence on food. “I turned to food as a comfort which only made things worse... It ruled my life”
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Breakfast: (Nothing)

Lunch: Quarter-pound hamburger with cheese, large fries and a brownie with nuts

Dinner: Chicken and beef fajitas, refried beans, rice, sour cream, one bag of tortilla chips and salsa

Snacks: Half a bag of potato chips and one pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream
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Years of shunning exercise and any physical exertion took a toll on Mandy’s body. “I literally couldn't walk to the end of the block without being out of breath,” she said. Professionally and socially, her weight inhibited her from pursuing her goals and getting close to others. And since she never dated in high school, she lacked the confidence and comfortability to develop a healthy romantic relationship. “I wasn't happy,” Mandy said. “It affected my outlook on life and how I interacted with other people.”

Mandy finally realized the extent of her depression during a trip to Cancun that was planned as a relaxing island getaway became unbearable. Constantly worrying over her weight, Mandy couldn’t enjoy her vacation or participate in any fun activities like snorkeling or exploring ancient ruins. “[I kept thinking], how would I fit on the airplane? How bad would I look in a swim suit? Would the furniture hold my weight?” Mandy recalled. “I was also constantly worrying about what health problems were just around the corner.”

Since Mandy’s father was diagnosed with diabetes, she often felt anxious about her own health: “I knew it was just a matter of time — if I didn’t have a heart attack first.” She finally decided she couldn’t continue living in such an unhealthy manner and consulted a surgeon about weight-loss surgery.

At her initial appointment, the doctor notified Mandy that she first needed to lose 25 pounds before they could schedule a surgery. Committed to changing her life, Mandy decided to give dieting a try in order to book the surgery. She began on a low-carb diet and to her surprise, she lost 20 pounds in just one month. “I think maybe the key was starting small — losing 25 pounds didn’t seem as impossible as losing 200,” Mandy said. Instead of following through with her surgery plans, she stuck with her successful diet and slowly incorporated exercise. “I did it all my own,” Mandy said.
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Mandy started by cutting refined carbohydrates out of her diet. She tossed out sugar, bread, pasta, potatoes, corn, and other starches that once composed her daily staples. She generally ate lots of salads with varied toppings, such as cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions or meat.

After three months of adhering to her low-carbohydrate diet, Mandy began walking, slowly, each day. “I was so out of shape I could only walk about five minutes at two miles an hour on a treadmill,” Mandy said. “But I stayed with it and continued to increase my workout as my overall health improved.”

Mandy continued to go the gym every day for at least an hour, and three days a week she focused on 45 minutes of strength training followed by 30 minutes of cardio. The remaining four days were spent on cardio, alternating between the treadmill, elliptical machine and recumbent bike.

“Really, the whole process was not hard,” Mandy said. Throughout her weight loss, she never really hit a plateau, a strength she attributes to continually changing workout regimens. “My mantra is ‘Just do it,’ meaning stop talking and start acting.”

After two and a half years, Mandy lost 232 pounds and now weighs in at 165 pounds. “The hardest part has been trying to lose the last 20 pounds” she said.
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Breakfast: Meal shake or a low-fat yogurt and banana

Lunch: Mixed green salad with chicken, blue cheese and low-fat dressing on the side

Dinner: Grilled chicken, asparagus, mixed green salad and low-fat dressing on side

Snacks: Nuts or a Kashi granola bar
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Today, nearly four years after she began losing weight, Mandy participates in activities she never thought her body could handle. She’s now able to challenge herself with exciting outdoor adventures: She hikes up 3500-foot mountains, kayaks, goes camping, and even rediscovered a childhood favorite — horseback riding. For exercise, she looks to everyday activities, like walking instead of hailing a cab or taking the stairs instead of opting for the elevator.

“I have finally taken control of my life,” Mandy said. “I feel I am the person I was meant to be and I’m enjoying every moment. I'm in the best physical and emotional shape of my life... My family and friends tell me that one of the biggest outward changes, other than the weight loss, is the big smile on my face.”

Mandy no longer suffers from the insecurities and humiliation that marked her teen and early adult years. She finally feels comfortable meeting new people and being part of honest, open relationships, without fear of being judged by her appearance. “I feel like a filter has been removed between me and the rest of the world.”

In regard to her eating habits, Mandy doesn’t diet. She has simply learned to enjoy and appreciate healthy, low-calorie foods. She does, however, still remember to treat herself, but with prizes that don’t involve food (although she does admit a weakness for chocolate chip cookies).

Mandy feels like a whole new person and encourages other to begin with small, reasonable goals: “I want other people out there to know that it is never too late to change your life — you just have to have a goal, make a start, and track your progress. I found that once I started to lose weight, the positive feedback I got from those around me was very helpful in continuing whenever I felt down.”

Sometimes, Mandy is still shocked by her progress and the difference her weight loss made. “I went to an 80's party a few months ago wearing my actual 9th grade drum major uniform,” Mandy said. “I couldn't believe it!”

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Rosie Rose Coates, a corrections officer from Tacoma, Wash. struggled with her weight since she was a child. Brought in what she describes as a “dysfunctional house,” Rosie turned to food when she felt overwhelmed with depression and confusion. Having never known her natural mother, Rosie was raised by her stepmother and father, who moved frequently due to his service in the Army.

“I was depressed all the time, even though I wanted to be happy — I couldn’t let go of compulsive overeating,” Rosie said. “I was angry, sad and had a negative outlook on the world.”

As a teenager, Rosie resorted to drastic weight loss solutions, such as diet pills and starvation. But her attempts rarely succeeded and often backfired, with Rosie gorging and eating huge amounts. “I would try to eat foods like green beans, that I thought were healthy for me, but I would return back to my regular eating habits after starving myself for a few days.”

By the time she got married at age 20, she weighed 300 pounds and consumed between 8,000-10,000 calories per day. Although her husband had always been supportive, he never pressured her to lose weight — he gently encouraged her to get healthy for the sake of their family. “He wasn’t rude about my weight,” Rosie said. “He suggested that I begin exercising after I had my daughter [and my goal] was to have a successful relationship with my daughter and to raise her in a healthy environment.”

Professionally and socially, Rosie’s weight held her back — she spent a majority of her day concentrating on eating and planning her meals. “My perception was that coworkers viewed me as an angry, large, hostile black woman,” Rosie said. “I was definitely concerned.”
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Rosie viewed food as a “friend” and an immediate stress reliever. To help alleviate anger, sadness or any other negative emotion, Rosie turned to eating. “Food was my ultimate choice to help me cope with life,” Rosie said.

Rosie recalls using food as a coping mechanism from as early as five. Her first memories include eating large amounts of comfort food at the home of her grandmother, who would spoil her with candy and treats. But as Rosie’s family life changed — when her father returned from Vietnam, he brought along a wife with whom Rosie did not get along — her eating habits escalated. Rosie would “steal” food from her refrigerator in the middle of the night because her stepmother would ration food to her.

As she acclimated to her new home, she often thought back to her pleasant life with her grandmother, and the eating associated with it. “I think that the comfort that was given to me by my grandmother and food, I must have somehow transferred it,” Rosie said. “I believe that I was seeking the comfort of my grandmother and the life that I knew and somehow all of my eating transformed into compulsive overeating to survive my childhood.”

As she grew older, Rosie’s eating habits played a role in her family, often negatively affecting the way she communicated. Uncomfortable and self-conscious, she kept her worries and issues to herself, which stunted many of her relationships. “I would withhold talking about things that were affecting me and pretend that I was a ‘super woman,’ and when I would talk about my frustrations, I would end up ranting and saying things without thinking first.”
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Rosie’s eating habits escalated when she married and got pregnant. Emotionally vulnerable, she turned to a familiar friend — food. “There were so many changes occurring at once, the only way that I could deal with them was by eating.”

Rosie recalls consuming without any self-control, often gorging on fatty foods and junk food throughout the day. She typically started her day with sugary cereals, three pieces of toast and sausages, then stopped off at McDonald’s for several oily breakfast sandwiches — all before noon. “I would eat anywhere and on an ongoing basis,” Rosie said of her former diet. “In the car while driving, sitting on the couch or while lying in the bed.”
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Breakfast: Bowl of Captain Crunch, along with several Jimmy Dean sausages, and a couple slices of toast with jelly and butter

Snacks: Honey buns, cupcakes, king size Snickers, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies

Lunch: Three hotdogs, three slices of bread, with mayonnaise, relish and ketchup, chips, cookies, and pasta

Dinner: Homemade hamburgers, meatloaf, fried fish, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and rice
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For years, Rosie suffered mentally and physically from the weight of her body. Walking became more difficult; her thighs painfully rubbed together; she couldn’t keep up with her daughter; and often battled severe depression that stemmed from her insecurities.

But the situation escalated when Rosie realized she doubted her own parental guidance. One night, Rosie was home alone while her husband and daughter Ebonee attended a basketball tournament and it hit her — Ebonee was growing up and that she wasn’t living up to be a proper role model. Rosie often told her daughter to eat well, exercise, and follow her dreams, but she failed to live by her own words.

“I was definitely contradicting myself with what I believed and how I acted,” Rosie said. “I knew that that she would end up doing the opposite of what I was telling her to do. My words didn't match my actions — basically, I was lying to everybody.”
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Determined to spend the rest of her life in a happier, healthier state, Rosie decided to face her fears and excel. “I felt as though I deserved better. I decided to take charge of my health by taking a year and a half off to explore the reasons that led to my out-of-control eating,” Rosie said.

She began by slowly scaling back on the high-calorie, fast-food meals that composed a good portion of her regular diet. Rosie kept her diet to 3,000 calories a day, focusing on eight to 10 small meals, and allowing one “off day” per week, then reduced it to one day per month and ultimately to one day every three months. However, she did afford herself a Snickers bar in her daily allotment so that she wouldn’t feel deprived.

To keep track of her progress, Rosie kept a detailed food log of her daily intake, which helped build confidence in her ability to control her eating. “What helped me to lose the weight was knowing that I did not have anything to be scared of anymore and realizing that my old habits were getting me nowhere.”

For exercise, Rosie increased her cardio training to include biking, running, rowing, elliptical training and also started training more intensely with weights. Although she shed pounds quickly with her new diet and workout routines, she still faced temptation and difficulties. “I was trying not to binge when I was stressed. I would try to sit with whatever emotions I was feeling and kept telling myself that things would only get better — and eventually they did.”

Rosie once had a habit of weighing herself every day, but she eventually realized it only discouraged her. She tossed out her scale and didn’t weigh herself for nearly a year and a half. Only on her birthday did she finally step on the scale and see she lost 100 pounds. “I usually get up early to go to work, so that day my husband got up with me and I yelled ‘Yes! I did it!’”
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Breakfast: Two veggie patties

Snack: Cliff bar and a Frozen Fruit bar; oatmeal

Lunch: Philly cheese steak sandwich and two cups of yogurt

Afternoon snack: Sun Chips

Dinner: One package of rice, chicken in soy sauce and onions, along with salad and carrots
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Now weighing in at 193 pounds, Rosie views food as fuel for her body and focuses on nutrition that will help her live a fuller life. She no longer lives to eat, but eats to perform better. “My health is extremely important to me,” Rosie said. “I will no longer take it for granted.”

Emotionally, Rosie feels more at ease and able to communicate in a positive manner. She’s not plagued by the sadness and anger that shadowed her earlier years. “I speak with kindness and patience now and I am willing to listen to others. Weight loss has helped me to have the confidence to set goals and achieve them. I wake up feeling refreshed and ready for what the day has in store.”
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Iowa native Lorie Webb, a 40-year-old case manager for people with special needs, struggled with her weight since childhood. Often opting to watch TV over playing outdoors, Lorie started to gain noticeable weight when she was in third grade.

She recalls one embarrassing incident in which it was obvious she was larger than her slim classmates: After a school accident, Lorie’s mother brought extra clothes for her to change into, but they differed from her peers: “My mom brought polyester pants with a stretchy waist,” Lorie said via e-mail. “Everyone else had designer jeans, which I coveted but couldn't fit into.”

By high school, she weighed more than 160 pounds, but refused to weigh herself because she simply “didn't want to know.” Although she was involved in many school activities, such as choir, debate and band, her size often became an issue. “The band instructor insisted on ordering me a new uniform jacket because [the standard one] didn't fit. So I not only stood out for being short and fat, but it was obvious I had a tailored jacket.”

After several humiliating incidents, Lorie began to dislike band practice and other hobbies — but she assumed she couldn’t control her weight. “I didn't realize that I didn't have to be fat. My dad's mother was only 4” 8 and 200 pounds, so I thought I was destined to be just like her.\"

As she grew heavier, Lorie became more and more insecure of her appearance, and therefore less social. A self described introvert, she preferred staying at home instead of going out. But that often led to further eating and snacking, an activity that she found comforting. “Food seemed to be a good friend I could turn to,” Lorie said. “It was my buddy. [At school] I was everyone's friend but no one’s girlfriend. I was the one with the pretty face, but it stopped there.”

Lori continued to gain weight during college, averaging between 170 and 190 pounds, then rose to 200 pounds by the time she was married. The situation only escalated when she gave birth to her son and reached 240 pounds. It was then she noticed how her size held her back from normal, everyday chores. “I realized how hard it was to get up from the floor when changing diapers, that if [my son] Chase wanted to play a game I had to do it at the table since it was too hard to get off the floor,” Lorie said.

The following winter after giving birth, Lorie met with her physician and casually mentioned her interest in gastric bypass surgery. She was shocked by her doctor’s response: \"Well, you know you're a candidate.\" Although she understood she was overweight, she never quite realized her BMI hit 50.8, which translates to morbidly obese. “I will always remember the sting of [my physician’s] words—they smacked me across the face.”
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Lorie loved to eat, and turned to food for a myriad of emotions—sadness, boredom, anger, happiness, and loneliness. Eating became an activity she felt she could always turn to it when she felt emotionally vulnerable.

“Food had been a friend that was there whenever I wanted it, and I overindulged in it,” Lorie said. “I have had to change that because I don't want my children in that same cycle.” "; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Eating habits","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo_StoryLevel/080327/lorie9.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "325", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Lorie admits she was a closet eater, who hid her snacking and junk-food cravings. “If people didn't see me eat it, then it didn't count, right? That’s what I thought.”

Lorie didn’t start her days with breakfast. Instead, she would snack the entire day at her workplace. “Food was around all the time [at work], so I ate what was there” Lorie recalled. She never bothered to read the food labels—she would just eat out of the box until it was empty.
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(Occasional) Breakfast: Burger King or McDonald’s meal with hash browns

Snack: Crackers, cheese, brownies, cookies, chocolate candy bar

Lunch: Pizza, chicken nuggets, hot dogs and a large order of McDonald's fries

Dinner: Large portion of lasagna with several pieces of garlic bread or fried chicken with fried potatoes and biscuits
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Too ashamed to look into the mirror, Lorie shuddered at the thought of others viewing her as “morbidly obese.” She felt they overlooked many of her attributes and simply characterized her as fat. “I didn't want to be seen that way, I wanted to be seen as Lorie,” she said.

But even though she suffered from physical pain and daily insecurities, it was an issue closer to home that provided the final anguish. Lorie attended a mother’s tea at her child’s school and found herself miserable, alone in a corner. All the other mothers chatted together, while she sat by herself—excluded—on two chairs. When it was time to play floor games with the children, Lorie was unable to physically lower herself to the floor to join in. “Not being able to play with my kids felt like I was hindering them from being children,” Lorie said.

Right then, Lorie decided it was time to make a change. With support from her family, she vowed to lose the weight and become healthy enough to play with her kids.
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Lorie began by searching online for a weight-loss program that fit her dietary needs. She settled on the Weight Watchers Point System, which provides point values based on its calories and fat content. She gave up former favorite foods, such as chips and sugary carbohydrates, and learned to alter
recipes to replace the fat with low-calorie alternatives. “If I don't write down everything I eat, and think of the calories, I will overeat and binge,” Lorie said. “I have to monitor and watch that all the time.”

By keeping her daily caloric intake between1200-1500 and keeping a food journal, Lorie shed 80 pounds in 10 months, and then hit a plateau.

Frustrated and determined to reach her weight loss goals, she decided to join a local fitness center that offered a full schedule of aerobic and cardio classes. “That was when my life really changed,” Lorie said. “I tried a variety of classes and within a couple weeks, I was embraced by a sisterhood of gal pals that encouraged me, kept me honest, motivated me and helped me achieve my goal.” With emotional support from her gym friends and by changing up her workout routines, Lorie lost 120 pounds and discovered a zest for exercise. “The girl who couldn't do a lap in gym in high school can now run!”
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Breakfast: Two egg whites, one slice of low-fat cheese and a 100-calorie bagel

Snack: Protein bar; shake; almonds; or carrot chips with salsa

Lunch: Salad with spinach, mixed greens, steamed vegetables, and turkey or grilled chicken

Snack: Beef jerky or fruit

Dinner: Grilled chicken, steamed vegetables, 1/2 cup brown rice with a small side salad

Snack: Air-popped popcorn
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Lori, who now weighs in at 135 pounds, still has moments when food overpowers her thoughts, but she’s usually able to control herself—primarily because she views food as body fuel. By eating controlled, planned portions, she now has more powerful and feels more at ease with her body.

“I feel like I am much more outgoing, more confident and happier,” Lorie said of her new lifestyle. “I love to wake up and see each new day and I have the energy to make it through until the evening.”

And socially, Lorie has expanded her circle and moved past her quiet, introvert days. She boasts a whole new set of female friends, an emotional support system that she never had before. “They are truly an inspiration and I am so thankful.”

This past Easter, Lorie returned to her hometown high school to walk a path that once took her over 25 minutes. This time, though, she jogged it in less than six minutes. “That showed me how far I have come! Forty doesn't mean you can't be fitter then ever!”
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Great-tasting chili doesn't require high-fat beef or extra oil. TODAY health editor Joy Bauer offers a healthy version of the dinner favorite:

Joy's diet-friendly turkey chili
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Monica King, a 27-year-old sales associate from Copperas Cove, Texas, didn’t always struggle with her weight. During her childhood, Monica was an average size and led a generally-normal life. That was until her family life changed, and with it her diet. Monica was sent to live with her grandparents in 1997, and within six-months, the young and lonely teen packed on roughly 30 pounds. Without family and friends, she turned to eating during bouts of depression and loneliness; food became her solace. “Returning to Texas, I stepped off the plane at around 165 pounds,” Monica said via e-mail.

Adjusting to her new size, Monica began to believe her body was destined for her family’s fate — obesity. Having witnessed her extended family grabble with weight, she assumed her issues were simply hereditary. “My dad’s side is all heavy. [I believed] I would have to accept becoming heavier as I got older.”

When Monica returned to her hometown, her habits only escalated — especially after she met her first husband. “I was always eating,” Monica recalled. “I think I got comfortable and stopped caring for myself.” During the early years of her marriage, Monica and her husband constantly fought, which put a strain on her diet. Upset and frustrated by her relationship, Monica often resorted to her one comfort — eating. “I would reach for the all mighty Snickers king size bar, or anything crunchy or salty.” Years of junk food and high-calorie snacks took their toll. Without even realizing it, Monica slowly grew to 240 pounds.

In February 2003, Monica gave birth to a daughter, but couldn’t bear to even look at the scale during her doctor visits. “I didn’t want to know,” Monica said. But when she finally did, she was horrified: “I couldn’t believe I had gotten that big. I wore maternity clothing for a year after I gave birth.”

It wasn’t long before Monica’s weight held her back from enjoying her time with family and friends, and more importantly, her daughter. Unable to run alongside a toddler, Monica emotionally and physically suffered. She was unable to participate in normal parenting moments. “I felt like I was a horrible mother because I wasn’t able to go down the slide with her,” Monica said. [My daughter] is full of energy that never seems to let up and I couldn’t keep up with her.”

One painful memory sticks out for Monica: she took her daughter to Sea World, but couldn’t accompany her in the park rides because she was too big to fit into the rides’ seat. “There were a lot of people around and I had to get up and wait for my child. It was devastating.”

Monica, too embarrassed to be seen in public, hid away from her friends and shied away from everyday activities. “I didn’t enjoy swimming, going to the park, or even just on a walk with my daughter. I kind of stood back from the world and let it pass by me.” Even strangers made her nervous: “I would go to the grocery store and whenever you put items in your basket, people would smirk and assume I would eat everything.” Her weight overshadowed everything, until she basically “became a hermit.”
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For Monica, food was comforting. Whenever she felt upset or sad, she turned to eating, even though it usually turned into a vicious cycle. “It was almost like a roller coaster. I would feel bad, eat just to feel better, but in turn it made me feel worse,” Monica said. “I would then eat more to make the bad feeling go away.”

But the guilt never dissipated. The negative feelings always resurfaced and Monica struggled to feel at ease with her eating habits, which soon dominated her. “Food was everything to me. My life revolved around it, always wondering where and when I would eat my next meal or snack. It consumed a major portion of my life.”

Monica’s family and friends ignored her weight gain, to help her feel included. “They wanted to make sure I didn’t feel like an outcast. I was beautiful to my family no matter what I looked like on the outside.” Although it was a heartfelt attempt, it did little to help boost Monica’s self-confidence or depression. “I was dying on the inside,” she said.
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Monica often tried to limit her intake, but it only backfired. She would attempt to eat only once a day or skip meals, but by the end of the day she would be so hungry that she would over-indulge in fatty foods and drive-through meals. “I would be so famished that I thought it was o.k.,” Monica said.” She usually ate at McDonald’s, Burger King, or her all-time favorite, Taco Bell.

But though she was never too concerned about what she ordered, she always felt upset as soon as she finished her meals. “I would gorge myself,” Monica said. “When I was heavy, sitting at a fast-food place would make me feel so guilty.”
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Breakfast: Nothing

Noon snack: Potato chips with dip, Snickers bar, large Coke, Beef Jerky

Lunch: Nothing

Dinner: Burger King Double Whopper with cheese, large fries, large order of onion rings, large Coke

Dessert “Brownie Earthquake” (brownie, ice cream, Oreo crumbles, hot fudge)
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Monica suffered from sleep apnea, heart burn and lung pain — but it wasn’t until Monica’s physical pain reached an unbearable level that she decided to take action. While at her job, she began experiencing horrible pain shooting up her left leg and noticed what she thought were varicose veins protruding from her leg.

“I went to the doctor, only to find out that not only did I have varicose veins — I also had a blot clot. At the age of 24 years old, I went into surgery to have vein stripping surgery. It could have been prevented.”

While crying to a friend about the effects of her weight — from the clothing, the physical pain, the shame — her friend insisted she try joining L.A. Weight Loss program. With nothing left to lose, Monica made at appointment at her local L.A. Weight Loss center, and for the first time, she felt comfortable with a diet program’s goals.

“I learned how to eat in moderation, with portion control and the best times to eat during the day,” Monica said. “My family and friends really didn’t comment too much and weren’t supportive since they had seen many other diets fail, so the expectancy of me doing L.A. Weight Loss was pretty slim.”
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With help from L.A. Weight Loss, Monica started a new diet that incorporated her personal needs. She could still eat her favorite foods, especially ones from her Asian heritage, without restricting her appetite. “I am Korean and part-Asian and whatever I am doing has to compliment my lifestyle,” she said. “I eat rice and I don't want to give it up — ever! They told me I could do all that and lose weight. From there on, it was history — I was on a role.” Monica visited her local center three times a week, thriving off L.A. Weight Loss’ involved and attentive personnel. “I couldn't do it by myself.”

Monica also had a personal counselor who became a cheerleader and best friend throughout her weight loss journey. “I was being accountable for my actions,” she said. “My counselor prepared me for major holidays and helped me overcome pitfalls. She would help me evaluate my eating habits and make sure I was on track with everything so I would continue to lose the weight in a healthy manner.”
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Breakfast: Fruit smoothie made from 8 ounces of skim milk, strawberries, and ice cubes

Snack: Four dried apple rings

Lunch: Six ounces of grilled tilapia seasoned to taste with lemon, 1/2 cup wild rice, and one cup of steamed broccoli

Dinner: Chicken fajitas made with six ounces of chicken breast, green peppers, onions, and one flour tortilla

Snack: one orange, nine pecans
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Today, at 130 pounds, Monica still enjoys food, but it’s a far different experience. “I view food as energy for my body,” she said. She no longer uses food to cope with negative feelings and depression. Instead, she focuses on being healthy, physically and mentally.

“I learned that I do have time for me. I take care of my daughter by being a healthier me and a good role model so that she will never have to experience my struggles. I even slide down the park slide with ease and wear her out before I even break a sweat.”

Losing weight has enabled Monica to see that she can accomplish all her goals. “Where so many times I have been told no and fell short, I can now pick up my head and try again.”

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Barbara Kelley, a 37-year-old high school activities counselor from Rialto, Calif., lost 240 pounds after struggling with her weight since she was a child. Considered the “chubby one” since middle school, her issues escalated until she became obese in adulthood. “I do not remember a time in my life when I was not the big kid in class. I was always aware that I was fat,” Barbara said via e-mail. “I never liked being fat, but I never thought I could be anything different.”

Barbara attempted dozens of diets, but only succeeded with the Fen-Phen diet, which helped her lose 100 pounds. But the diet drug became illegal soon thereafter—and she gained back the weight. When she married, she weighed 325 pounds, and then gained nearly 125 pounds over the next six years.

Although she tried to prevent her weight from overshadowing her goals, Barbara realized, later in life, that her size heavily impacted her childhood: “I never got to do point shoes in ballet. I never got to wear a team suit in swimming, as they did not make my size,” Barbara recalled. “I did not go out of my way to try new things or challenge myself, as I did not think people would listen to my ideas.”

Often describing herself as the “Michelin girl,” Barbara’s self-loathing escalated throughout high school and college. The insecurities followed her into adulthood, preventing her from dating, joining a sorority, working, or going on planes. “I didn’t want to suffer the embarrassment of paying for an extra seat. There were some things in life I just believed I did not deserve.
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Barbara never or paid any attention to her nutrition or daily caloric intake. “I just ate what sounded good or was easily at hand,” Barbara said. “I relied on fast food a lot as I had very long working hours.”

It didn’t help that Barbara often ate to keep up with her husband, who at six feet and 200 pounds, was better able to wear the weight. “He truly could eat what he wanted. In the end I would eat what he did, and then some.”
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Barbara’s daily intake bordered on 4,000 or more calories. She would mindlessly consume, not because she actually craved food, but rather, because it gave her something to do. “I would eat because it was time to eat, not because I was hungry.” Barbara said. “I usually ate either at my desk, in the car, or in front of the television. I never sat down at a table, as I lived alone until I married.”"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","'Before' daily intake","","","","", "", "", "", "", "right", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "
Breakfast: Two sausage biscuits with egg, hash browns, and a diet soda

Snack: Candy bar

Lunch: Salad bar with full-fat dressing, mayonnaise, two biscuits and a diet soda

Snack: Candy bar and a bag of chips

Dinner: Eight to 10 ounces of red meat, bread, potato, and salad

Dessert: Ice cream and toppings
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Barbara and her husband Elmo had longed to start a family, but she knew her size could possibly hinder her chances at a pregnancy. So instead, the couple sought out adoption—but soon discovered her weight would, once again, become a deciding factor.

For the adoption process to move forward, Barbara needed a doctor’s note stating that her size, aching feet, and borderline diabetic status would not inhibit her from proper parenting. Since Barbara declined procedures such as gastric bypass, her doctor suggested she attend the Pathways for Wellness classes at Kaiser Hospital, which teaches proper nutrition to patients

At the conclusion of the first class, patients were forced to face one intimidating obstacle—a scale. Barbara, with eyes closed, stepped on the scale, and was shocked to read 437.4 pounds. “I stepped off with tears in my eyes,” Barbara recalled. “I remember thinking ‘how could I let myself get to this size?’ While walking back to the car, I told my husband that I was done, that I wanted to change.”

On July 1, 2005, Barbara made a promise to herself and her husband. “I decided I wanted to live long enough to fulfill my wedding vows, to be together at least 50 years, which is the goal we set for each other on our wedding day.” Nearly immediately, Barbara made small, but ultimately, important changes. She opted to become her school’s activities counselor, which made her more visible on campus and offered more time for her to pursue weight loss on weekends. “As a busy high school marching band director, I had very long days and mostly reached for food that was quick. [With my new position], my husband and I began doing things together that were non-work related.”
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During their 12-week course, Barbara lost 65 pounds, while her husband Elmo shed over 30 pounds. The couple then decided to join a gym and even hire a personal trainer to coach them four times a week. That October, Barbara celebrated by treating herself to a shopping trip—after having shunned clothes-shopping for years. “I remember taking the size 30/32 pants and calling out to my husband to get the next size down,” Barbara said. “That day marked a victory.”

Moving forward, Barbara made sure to reward herself throughout her weight loss journey, providing larger incentives for hitting major milestones: When she lost 100 pounds, she went on a cruise, and when she hit the 150-pound mark, she registered for a beauty pageant. “The confidence I gained from the pageant was great, and I still love wearing my People’s Choice crown for everyone to see.”

But it was for the 200-pound goal that Barbara promised herself the ultimate treat. On July 1, 2006, she stepped on the scale, which read 237.4 pounds—exactly 200 pounds down to the ounce. “When my husband asked, ‘Well, what did you get?’ I responded, ‘we’re going to Disney World!’ My eyes welled up with tears once again, but these were tears of joy, as I have not been this size since my sophomore year in high school.”

Barbara also took a keen interest in nutrition after she was given the “Calorie King” book, which became her “food bible.” Determined to make informed diet decisions, she read all food labels and kept a food and exercise diary.

By October 2006, Barbara was half her original size, and confident in her new lifestyle. “No matter how long it takes to reach this new goal, I learned that I am responsible for myself and my choices. Now when I speak to others and they ask for my secret, I tell them this: It’s all about choices.. When you choose yourself, you can do anything!”
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Breakfast-: Fat-free yogurt and fruit

Lunch: Bowl of chicken soup, carrots, and fruit

Snack: 100-calorie popcorn bag

Dinner: Six ounces of chicken or eight ounces of fish, steamed vegetables, and salad with dressing on the side

Dessert: Fat-free frozen yogurt (on workout days)
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Barbara transformed her life—physically, emotionally and professionally. No longer plagued by medical issues, she can enjoy previously burdensome activities. “I remember the day I had to go to the misses department instead of plus size,” Barbara said. “Each of these [accomplishments] change me and they keep encouraging me on a daily basis.”

Her self-esteem improved as did her outlook on life: “I do feel better about myself,” she said. “I am now in control and make informed decisions. No longer do I diet, rather I live life. I eat to fuel my body so I can do the many fun activities I am now capable of.

I’ve planned a two-week trip to Washington, D.C, whereas before I never had the energy to take vacations. I have learned that the sky is the limit. If I see something that I want to try, I no longer put it off. I just jump right in.”

In addition to nearly completing her Ph.D degree, Barbara has also become more ambitious in her work—and even fallen in love with my husband all over again. As for starting a family, Barbara just completed paperwork for an adoption, but has requested a six-month pause to see if she can get pregnant on her own. “Life is good and I am enjoying every minute of it.”
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Great-tasting chicken Parmesan doesn't require a deep fryer or jarred spaghetti sauce. TODAY health editor Joy Bauer offers a recipe for a healthy version of Barbara's favorite recipe.


Joy's diet-friendly chicken parm with broccoli
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Tena Evans, a 40-year-old mom and day care manager from Fresno, Calif., struggled with her eating habits for decades, ever since she was young. Although she wasn’t a tubby child–in fact, she was actually given weight-gaining shots by doctors – she began putting on pounds at the age of 10, after her parents’ divorce left her emotionally vulnerable. Over time, she became the heavier of her two sisters, who wore sizes of two and four, whereas she wore a size 10.

The situation escalated after Tena, at age 19, had her fair share of family stress; she got pregnant as she was caring for her ill mother-in-law, who passed away only a month before her due date. Then her newborn daughter was diagnosed with a serious heart condition that required an extended stay in the hospital. The constant worry led Tena to indulge in over-eating. She tried to lose the weight with several diets, including the Atkins diet, blood type diet, Richard Simmons diet and more, but she ultimately gained back more than she lost.

“Constantly yo-yoing took a toll on my emotions and health,” Tena said. “I became unhappy with myself and shut myself off from friendships. Not being able to reach my weight loss goals hindered goals in other parts of my life.” Tena had long considered returning to college but she was afraid to physically enter a school. Familiar with how society unfairly treats overweight individuals, Tena didn’t wish to standout in a classroom setting. “I thought I would be embarrassed and uncomfortable,” she said.

With little time to herself or to prepare healthy meals, Tena only put on more pounds. “I felt like a failure in that part of my life and couldn't see past it.”

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Having struggled as a child with emotional eating, Tena’s unhealthy habits only grew more severe with age. Tena often turned to food for emotional comfort or for quick stress relief. “The more weight I gained, the more I used food to celebrate or deny feelings,” Tena said. “I ate when I was upset, stressed, overwhelmed, and angry. I'd even celebrate with food when I was happy.”"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Eating habits","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/TVNews/Today%20show/Today%20Health/Photos/Joy%2003%2009/Tena%20Evans%20Before%20Photo%202.hlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "273", "402", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "
Apart from high-calorie, full-fat food, Tena would also snack all day. Between shuffling her kids to various activities, she would consume fast-food meals and eat on the go. Her eating habits soon snowballed along with her weight. “The more weight I gained, the less hope I had of losing, and the more I ate,” Tena recalled. \"It was a never-ending cycle.”

Tena’s eating habits spiraled out of control and soon affected her daily, normal activities; she suffered from asthma and numbness in her leg, which made even walking a challenge. “I knew the weight and unhealthy eating was taking a major toll on my body,” Tena said. “I was afraid to know how much longer it would be able to take the damage.”

Tena was also concerned with the example she was setting for her young children. She sent mixed signals, often calling food her “enemy,” but at other times, “the best friend a girl could have.” Tena realized the severity of her habits when she consumed an entire cheesecake with her 7-year-old child. Today, Tena hopes her children can learn from her recent progress. “I hope that my kids see the healthy changes I have made and don't take the dieting lessons they saw as children.”
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Breakfast: Several eggs, sausage and French toast

Lunch: Tater Tots, chicken nuggets, and a few high-calorie sandwiches

Dinner: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, white bread rolls

Snacks: Cookies, cake and bowls of ice cream
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Over the last decade, Tena had rude and embarrassing encounters with strangers who were less than sympathetic to her image. In one instance, while shopping with her daughter, a salesperson approached Tena and exclaimed “Our clothing will not fit you.” And two years ago, a stranger viciously threw fast-food at her and screamed “Fat cow!”

But it was a much less hurtful moment that prompted Tena to make a change.

Tena’s sister sent her photos from a family fishing trip in which Tena was dressed in a sweatsuit, looking worried that she would tip the boat. Tena compared her sister’s svelte body with her overweight figure and realized that she simply wasn’t comfortable in her own skin. At the time, Tena weighed 318 pounds and had dodged doctor appointments for over 10 years. “[The photos] made me realize how much larger I had gotten,” Tena said. “I knew this time I really needed to do it.”
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Tena first started with small changes, focusing on retiring fatty, high-calorie foods, and then progressing with small walks. Once she saw positive results, she signed up at LA Weight Loss and Curves Gym, which guided her through a personalized weight loss program. For Tena, community support was essential.

“The accountability of weighing-in, in front of someone, every three days was huge,” Tena said. “The women I worked out with at Curves became my personal cheerleaders. The manager would even go as far as calling the days I didn't come in. And I began walking with a friend who helped me push my limits.”

Tena also received emotional support from her fellow church members and pastor, who only noticed her weight loss after she shed 60 pounds. “I kept my pastor’s ‘Be Disciplined’ motto on my fridge!” said Tena.

While Tena had once had difficulty walking half a mile, she was now able to walk three miles every day. Although she still struggled to find enough time for herself, Tena devoted at least three days a week to exercising at LA Weight Loss. “I work from 7 am to 5:30 pm, so getting out to the gym and exercising was a bit hard at first.”

She hit a plateau for about two months, but made sure to focus on goals other than a decreasing scale number. “I took my measurements and could see that I was losing inches even thought the scale wasn't showing it.” Thanks to support from friends, gym members and her local church, Tena lost 173 pounds in 18 months. Now weighing in at 145 pounds, she boasts a slim size six.
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Breakfast: 1/2 cup oatmeal and yogurt with 3/4 cup of berries

Snack: One boiled egg

Lunch: Four ounces of chicken, salad with a tablespoon of fat-free dressing and three cups of air-popped popcorn with I Can't Believe it's Not Butter Spray

Dinner: 1/2 baked potato, four ounces grilled fish seasoned with Mrs. Dash and one cup of steamed broccoli

Snacks: LA Lite Protein bar or a light yogurt with 3/4 cup of berries
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For Tena, learning to deal with various emotional issues through counseling helped her overcome a dependency on eating. Her view on food has changed drastically. While it was once her solution for boredom, anger or stress–today, it is simply her fuel. “I now eat to sustain myself, not for comfort or pleasure,” Tena said.

Not only has Tena’s health greatly improved, but she now also has far more energy to pursue her goals, including running marathons, returning to school, and most importantly, being with her family. “I know I will be around and healthy for a long while–and that is reassuring with my first grandchild on the way.”"; TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i++] = new Array("","Joy's recipes","","","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", ""); TDY_Joy_Fit_Club_Sept08[i-1].body = "

Discover Joy Bauer's low-fat, healthy recipes for two of Tena's's favorite foods:

Joy’s Brownie Makeover

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Tory Klementsen, 42, a high-school teacher from Marysville, Wash., recalls being aware of her weight from a very early age, specifically after she spent six weeks with her grandparents, who indulged her every whim. At home, Tory’s parents monitored her intake and made healthy, balanced meals, but her grandparents permitted her to eat as she pleased. “I remember eating whole sleeves of Oreos and washing them down with Black Cherry soda,” Tory said via e-mail. “It was heaven!”

When Tory returned from her grandparents, it was visibly apparent she had gained weight. “My mother was horrified!” Tory said. So, at the tender age of eight, Tory’s parents put her on a diet. She didn’t quite understand what a diet was, but she knew enough to feel bad about her body. “The entire thing was quite confusing,” she said. “On the one hand I was fat and needed to diet. But on the other hand, I had to clean my plate at every meal.” As the years went by, Tory slimmed down, but she was never as slim as her fit siblings. “I was referred to as the ‘husky’ child.”

Tory maintained an average weight all throughout high school, but the emotional damage was already done. Insecure and embarrassed of her appearance, she suffered socially: “I remember believing wholeheartedly that I was one of the fattest girls in school.” That belief turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy once Tory graduated from high school. She packed on the pounds because she thought “I’m already fat, so what difference did it make if I gained a few pounds?”

At 20, Tory married her high school sweetheart, Roy, and wore a size 11 wedding dress at the ceremony. But the first years of marriage were marked by an unhealthy focus on food. “We grew up and grew out together” Tory said. “Roy loved me the way I was and I loved him the way he was and we loved ourselves to over 200 pounds and over 300 pounds respectively.” But Tory could not escape the physical and mental anguish of her weight. By her mid-30s, she was plagued by painful gastric reflux, back issues and foot pain. It became so severe that Tory had difficulty walking up a flight of stairs or even sleeping. “I kept excusing it by thinking ‘it’s all part of getting older,’ but 35 isn’t old!”

Mentally, Tory couldn’t escape the pain of her weight. She constantly apologized for her appearance and struggled with her insecurities. “I craved even the slightest bit of attention,” Tory explained. “At the same time I was a vivacious and hard working teacher who was well-liked, but all I could do was come back time and time again to, ‘yeah but I’m fat.’ As if being fat completely downgraded every other good thing I had going for me.”
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For Tory, food was used for a multitude of emotions — love, comfort, entertainment, anger management. For every negative feeling, Tory would turn to food for soothing: “When I was down, I’d eat to feel better. When I was up, I’d eat to celebrate. When I was bored, I’d eat for entertainment.” Her eating habits spiraled out of control, especially during her first years of marriage.

With her partner in crime, Roy, Tory would even treat herself to a “snack day,” in which she would consume large amounts of junk food in front of a TV to celebrate payday. “We’d eat until we couldn’t eat any more,” Tory said. “To us, this was fun, a way to celebrate, but now I see just how completely destructive it was!”
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Even though Tory grew up in a healthy household, with a mother who provided proper balanced meals, she thrived on fast-food once she was on her own. She gained a great deal of weight, partly as an act of rebellion; coming from a family of six with limited income and controlled portions, indulging in “forbidden” foods provided Tory with a slight rush. “I consumed all of those things that I was told I couldn’t have at home — cookies, cakes, candies, and sugar sweetened cereals,” Tory said.

During her first year of work, Tory put on 30 pounds, primarily because she ate out for almost every meal. Breakfast was McDonalds, lunch was a drive-thru, and dinner was macaroni and cheese with a hamburger. As she noticed her body grow, she became more concerned but reacted by trying to trick herself into ignoring it -- she threw away her full-length mirror, weight scale, and tight clothing. Her philosophy became if she didn’t see her weight gain, then maybe it didn’t exist.
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Breakfast:McDonalds Big Breakfast with a large Coke

Snack: Hostess Snowballs

Lunch: McDonald’s quarter pounder with cheese, large fries, large coke, and a deep fried pie

Dinner: Macaroni and cheese, hamburger with extra cheese, chips

Dessert: Three bowls of ice cream
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For Tory, the moment of change was a painful, humiliating experience. A few years ago, while browsing through a relative’s scrapbooks, she noticed she looked rather odd in the all family photographs. Upon further investigation, she realized she had been modified. “Either my body was stretched or clip art was placed strategically over my fatty bits,” Tory said. “Your family is supposed to love you and not notice the fat, right? I think this person thought that she was doing me a favor, but all I could see was that I wasn’t good enough to be in family pictures without touch ups.”

Mortified, Tory decided she wanted her family to accept her just the way she was, for who she was, not by what she weighed. “I said, ‘I am fat. I will probably always be fat. Anyone who can’t accept me the way that I am is not someone I need in my life.’ No sooner were those words out that I realized, I can’t ask them to do something I don’t. I didn’t accept myself the way I was. Not by a long shot.”

Eager to end her self-loathing, Tory was determined to work towards self acceptance. She read books, researched Websites, and did all she could to change her lifestyle, starting with treating her body right. Instead of just jumping into a diet, which usually failed, she waited until she found a program that fit her needs. In 2002, when she weighed 235 pounds, Tory stumbled unto the Weight Watchers online, which offered her the tools she needed. Three months and 30 pounds later, Tory was “hooked.”
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After joining Weight Watchers online, Tory began writing down everything she ate, which helped her monitor her daily intake. Although it was often challenging to replacing high-fat foods with low-calorie alternatives, Tory was committed to the program and being understanding of her mistakes. “Instead of beating myself up, I decided each one was good in as much as I learned from it,” Tory said. “I learned to rewrite my mistakes, [asking myself] ‘what could I have done differently to have had a desired outcome?’”

After four weeks, Tory began exercising with DVDs at home, but she found them too boring. Instead, she joined Curves for Women — initially going three days a week, then slowly increasing to six days a week and added at-home workouts.

Tory also learned to look for foods that were high in bulk and nutrients, embracing vegetables which left her satisfied. As the months progressed, she incorporated healthy snacks into her day and junk foods soon fell to the bottom rung of the diet. “I ate five to seven times a day, which I call the Hobbit Diet. It keeps my blood sugar levels even, ensures I’m never hungry, and I’m able to adjust my calorie intake to my output on days I burn more or less than normal.”

When Tory hit 175 pounds, she took up running — an activity she hated during her youth. “I decided that as an adult, I’d take it back. I’d have a do-over for all the negative experiences I had running.” She also took up biking and swimming, even though she wasn’t good at either. Over time, she came to love these activities and even began running races, then soon thereafter, the Vancouver marathon. “I’ve gone on to complete nine marathons, six different states, one province, and have at least three planned for 2008 already,” Tory boasted.

Throughout all these accomplishments and changes, Tory has had one steady force — her husband Roy. He not only emotionally supported her, but also joined her on the road to weight loss. “He ate what I ate, exercised when I did most of the time, and he lost 80 pounds himself,” Tory said. “I know we’ll grow healthy together.”
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Breakfast: Breakfast oatcake (1 egg white, 1/4 cup rolled oats, 1 tablespoon pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, sweetener with a banana)

Snack: Apple or banana or Vitalicious muffin

Lunch: Large salad with half a chicken breast, sweet potato, or broccoli with light cheese sauce on the side.

Snack: Coffee and granola bar, fruit

Pre-workout snack: Pretzels and light string cheese, baby carrots

Post-workout snack: Fruit, recovery bar, peanut butter

Dinner: Homemade chicken or fish tacos, side salad, baked tortilla chips

After dinner snack: Greek yogurt with fruit, cold cereal
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Tory still enjoys food, but no longer uses it to pacify emotions. Instead, Tory turns to exercise or creativity to keep busy. “If I’m angry or frustrated, a good run works much better than a cookie,” Tory said of her new philosophy. “I try new things at least once a month, and have come up with some wonderful combinations doing that.” A lover of cooking, Tory’s new favorites include grilled Portobello mushrooms with polenta, guacamole and cheese.

To keep on track, Tory makes sure to pre-plan the meals outside her home so that she doesn’t over-eat at restaurants. And she isn’t afraid to ask for options not offered on the menu. “I find that most restaurants are very accommodating,” Tory said. “[I prefer] requesting places that have healthy options that allow [friends] to have a great time without me worrying about how I’ll feel after a meal.”
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The following tips helped Tory lose a tremendous amount of weight. They will
help you too!

1. Do not prepare more food than you and your family will be eating.
Extra food inevitably means additional portions and calories.

2. Brown bag your lunch — you'll save hundreds of calories. For
example, swap out an oversized deli sandwich on a roll with a bag of chips
(1000 calories) for a homemade sandwich with two slices of bread and four
ounces of lean meat with cut up veggies (400 calories). After one year's
worth of work days, you save 156,000 calories!

3. Keep a food journal and banish mindless eating. Tory looks at it
like this: \"If I abuse my body I will have to do all sorts of 'sick care' to
manage glucose levels, high blood pressure, gastric issues. I would rather
write down the food I eat to stay healthy, than track the medications I need to stay 'less sick'. I never go a day without writing down what I eat.\"
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Although Devyn believes she will always struggle with emotional eating, she no longer uses food as a source of entertainment. Her new diet now includes fruits and vegetables and she makes sure to read food labels before loading her cart at the grocery store.

“My first stop is always the produce department,” Devyn said. “And I make a grocery list and I stick to it. If I know that my Saturday splurge is going to be ice cream, then it goes on the list. If it’s not on the list, it doesn’t go in the cart.” Despite her commitment, Devyn still has her old cravings, including chips and cookies. “Sometimes I don’t win that battle, but most of the time I do.”

Devyn credits her new diet to one of many valuable lessons she learned from Weight Watchers — that a healthy lifestyle is not about perfection. “If I overdose on pizza or chips one night, I don’t treat it like it's the end of the world,” Devyn said. “I may not feel great the next day, but I get right back to my habits because I know that will make me feel better and get me back on track.” Devyn now also enjoys exercising — she runs six miles every day before work, and 10 to 12 miles on Saturdays before her Weight Watchers meetings. “Exercising simply makes me feel better, stronger and more in control of my life” Devyn said.

Thanks to her new fitness routine and eating habits, Devyn feels like a completely different person; she has a new outlook on life, and actually enjoys being active and trying new activities. She’s taken up cardio kickboxing, enrolled in an art class and even started playing softball again. “I can barely relate to the girl I see looking back at me in old pictures,” Devyn said. “I resumed traveling and going to movie theatres because now I don’t worry about the seats cutting of the circulation in my legs. The bottom line is that my weight is no longer a factor in my life. For someone who spent her whole life overweight, that is the best feeling in the world.”
"; // END editorial data