Physician, step on the scale!

Time magazine recently offered up an interesting fact: Doctors who are a healthy weight are more likely to talk to you about your weight than doctors who are overweight.

In a Mayo Clinic study about how doctors cared for their overweight patients, 30 percent of doctors who were a healthy weight brought up the subject, but only 18 percent of overweight or obese doctors addressed the topic. And who can blame them? If I were the patient, I know what I'd be thinking: Hypocrite!

That's exactly what the players of a major league baseball team were thinking when their team doctor started opining about matters of health and fitness. In How We Did It, I talked with Dr. Ken Romeo, a sports doc, who recalls how a player stopped one of his lectures with a few well-chosen words.

"Why should we listen to you, doc? You're fat!" the player accused.

At 315 pounds and wearing a 4X shirt, the doctor clearly had a weight problem. But, like most of us, he had never really seen his weight for what it was. We focus on features or character traits we think compensate for -- even hide -- our extra pounds... a pretty face, say, or a flamboyant personality.

Dr. Romeo suspected he might be fooling himself in this way. So he decided on a dramatic test. He took a brown paper grocery bag, cut out two holes for his eyes and put the bag over his head. Then, he looked in the mirror. This time, the mirror didn't lie. "I am fat!" he concluded.

Fortunately, Dr. Romeo took charge of the situation. He went on to lose 115 pounds using first the Atkins diet and then the Pritikin diet. He stopped smoking, too!

I wonder what he and his patients are talking about these days.

But what gives with the 30 percent figure anyway? That means more than two-thirds of healthy weight doctors aren't talking about weight issues, which--forgive me if I'm wrong here--also happen to be health issues.

When I was 30 pounds overweight and climbing, my doctor (a healthy weight woman) gave me my annual physicals and never said a word about my weight. Until one year, as she was literally going out the door of the exam room, and had her back to me, she said, "Watch the fats!" It wasn't a very helpful "conversation," to say the least. Would I have appreciated a more frank confrontation? I don't know. Would you?

Shocking ad campaign: helpful or hurtful?

A hospital in Georgia is currently running an anti-obesity ad campaign. The stark black-and-white images of obese children are shocking. Each of the ads shows an obese child along with a blunt message.

In one ad, a young girl who may be 200 pounds or more looks unsmiling, straight into the camera. The message below her reads: "WARNING. My fat may be funny to you but it's killing me."

Harmful or hurtful? Experts are lining up on both sides. I contributed a guest post to my publisher's blog about it this morning. You can read my post about this shocking obesity ad campaign here.

You can see all of the images from the ad campaign at Huffington Post here. What do you think? Is Georgia cruelly stigmatizing overweight children? Or is stark honesty about weight necessary for instigating change?

Margene and Brent: Believing It's Possible

In an earlier post, I encouraged readers to share with me their story of weight loss success. I got a reply from another blogger, Margene, whose blog Believing It's Possible Is Half the Battle,
chronicles the weight loss journey she and her husband Brent have undertaken. These two incredible people made it their goal to lose a total of 250 pounds in a year.

Two years ago, Brent and Margene were feeling hopeless. Brent weighed 300 pounds and Margene, 280 pounds. It had happened gradually. Once an athlete in three sports—football, soccer and track—Brent had put on “married” pounds and now mostly sat in his recliner and watched TV, too tired to do anything.

Margene had always eaten in response to her emotions. She had suffered the loss of her parents and, in recent years, the rejection of a dear friend. Two of the couple’s four children had been diagnosed with autism, and their daily tantrums wore her down. She basically stopped leaving their house in Utah. “Self-loathing is an art, and I perfected it,” she says.

The couple ate out frequently and enjoyed snacking at home. “It was a feast every night from 7 p.m. to midnight,” Brent says. Ice cream was on the menu every night. If one of the kid’s birthday cakes was around, Margene would finish it off in a day, leaving just small pieces for the kids. On top of that, Brent’s job with a restaurant added to the problem. “The restaurant had an in-house bakery,” he says. “You can imagine what that meant—cookies, muffins, cakes—all available around the clock.”

Through the years, the couple tried many programs to lose weight, but they didn’t work. Part of the problem was that Margene felt she had to “run” Brent’s program for him, or he would make poor eating choices at work. She found the stress of preparing healthy meals and snacks for both of them overwhelming. Their good intentions never lasted for long.

Gradually, though, Margene was coming out of her “cave,” as she calls it. The couple moved to Oregon, their kids were growing up, and they were getting help for their autistic children. Margene had dropped out of high school in her senior year, but now she went back to school and got her degree. Then, one day, a friend came to visit. She had recently lost 100 pounds using Medifast.

Margene was intrigued. The Medifast “Take Shape for Life” program entails eating five small 100-calorie “meal replacements” a day, using the company’s snack bars and foods that can be prepared using just water. The only meal she would have to cook was dinner, what Medifast calls a “lean and green” meal, a 5-7 oz. serving of a lean meat and three servings of low-carb vegetables.

Margene and Brent prayed for guidance. Brent prodded Margene to take the plunge because he knew that “when Margene does something, she does it 150 percent,” he says. It wasn’t long before they both became convinced it was the program for them. “Even before we started, I knew we’d succeed,” Margene says.

In February 2010, the couple began their weight loss journey. On their low-calorie diet, the weight started coming off immediately. Each week, they saw success at their weigh-ins. (You can see the yummy dinners Margene prepares on her blog.) Margene has lost 111 pounds so far and has 34 to go. Brent has lost 103 pounds, with 22 pounds to go.

Though the Medifast program doesn’t emphasize exercise until the maintenance phase, Brent was so excited about being more energetic that he began to play basketball, ride his bike and run 5ks. He cut back when he found himself eating more and slowing down his weight loss. Margene looks forward to the day when she too can run marathons. For now, they’re happy with the small triumphs that mean success to them.

“We went to Great Wolf Lodge with our kids recently, and we were able to go on all the rides with them,” Margene says. “We’re more a part of their lives now. I’m not the tired mom. We’re not the ‘leave us alone’ parents.” Brent’s newfound health encouraged a journey of self-discovery, and he sought treatment for his ADD. And, weight loss has revived their marriage. “I can’t stop staring at my husband now,” says Margene. “It’s like being newlyweds!”

On her blog, Margene expresses the depth of her gratitude for her life change. To her, it’s not just a new size, but a lifting of her mental anguish. “I have been heavy for so long and felt worthless compared to others who were more thin and fit,” she says. “But I know my Heavenly Father has compassion on me and knows my struggles and wants me to feel His love and know my true worth. He sees beyond my size and He sees the real me. I want to see that again too, and I know I will.”


If you want to share your weight loss story with me, leave a comment on this post, or contact me via my website (on my blogger profile) and e-mail address. I'd love to hear your story of success!

Slo-o-o-o-w-ing down

It happens to all of us! We start blogging, then we get busy, and the blog posts start to fall off. You feel guilty, you know you should make time for it. But the day is gone before you know it. I SWORE it wouldn't happen to me. That I would be different! Ha!

These past few months, I've been swamped finishing up the manuscript for my book, Miracles and Moments of Grace. It is a book of inspiring stories told by military chaplains. My deadline was September 1st. That was Wednesday. And... I made it! The book will be published in March 2011 by Leafwood Publishers. I'll be sure to let everyone know about it when the time comes!

This book was easy to write, even though it took me a year. But, in essence, it was exactly like the manuscript I wrote that was intended to be a book of weight loss success stories titled How We Did It. For that book, I interviewed 30 people and wrote up their stories of how they lost their weight -- anywhere from 20 to 220 pounds. Alas, though my agent and I sold the book, the contract fell through. Then the economy fell through the floor, and with it went my manuscript.

That's when I started this blog, Thirty Ways. In it, I tell the stories of some of the people in my book. But it felt wrong simply transferring their stories to a blog without asking permission. So, as I've gone along, I've been contacting my sources and telling their stories as I get the okay from them. I must say, though, that people have pretty much moved on and I can't contact them, or I don't hear back from them.

So... the posts have slowed down. And I've moved on. But I'd still like to tell weight loss success stories here, because I've heard from so many people how life-changing weight loss can be. I know it has been for me. Though I lost only 30 pounds, the new lightness is not only in body, but in my mind. The dark places in my head, the places I repeatedly went to -- I'm ugly, Where can I hide, I'm a failure, I hate myself -- have dissipated.

If you'd like me to tell you story here, or if you'd like to be a guest poster, just let me know. I'd love to hear your story of success. While the guilty voices chiding me about my weight have disappeared, I still have those guilty regrets about my poor neglected blog.

Writing and walking

Yow! I just returned from a writers conference, the Festival of Faith and Writing, at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The most practical thing I learned was this: A blog doesn't have any impact if you post to it too infrequently. And look at the date on my last post! I'm a slacker.

So, before I get back to the weight loss success stories, let me tell you about the conference. The featured writers were phenomenal: Mary Karr, Wally Lamb, Sally Lloyd-Jones, Avi, Kate DiCamillo. My absolute favorites were Rhoda Janzen (Mennonite in a Little Black Dress) and Michael Perry (Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting). I also loved taking in the photographs of Steve McCurry (Afghan Girl), with all their color and intriguing stories.

Beyond the headiness of walking among literary legends, I just plain enjoyed this conference because I didn't have anything to sell! I attend one or two conferences a year, and usually I'm pushing some manuscript or other. This time, though, I went off with a light heart, a contract on its way for my latest manuscript, a collection of stories told by military chaplains. So I just went to relax and enjoy!

Let me tell you, though, it was quite a workout physically. The workshops and sessions were spread out over the college and seminary and we conferees hiked for miles every day. I was exhausted by the second day. I must admit, I chose one session merely because it was in the lecture hall I was sitting in at the time.

So, this situation brings up the topic of weight. I am not at my lowest weight. I gained five pounds over the winter when a succession of pulled muscles in my legs and back limited my exercise. I've successfully lost one pound -- one pound! -- with a lot of work at the gym and close attention to my food choices. It's so hard to lose just one pound! The body is evil -- it remembers its former shape and wants to go back there. I'm working on the four pounds, and I'm determined to get back to my lowest weight.

Hurrying along to my workshops, hefting my heavy briefcase, I felt those extra pounds. It may not sound like much, but pick up a five-pound bag of sugar to give yourself an idea of the extra work it takes to drag that weight around.

All around me, I saw people struggling with far more weight than mine and my heart went out to them. This was a conference of literary richness, yet so many people couldn't enjoy it to the fullest, hobbled by their excess weight. I passed unhappy people huffing along, arriving late to the workshops and settling heavily into uncomfortably small chairs. They avoided the cafeterias and snack shops whose entrances were at the top of stairs, missing their chance to meet and talk with other writers. And, like me, many people chose the workshops that required the least effort.

It hurt my heart to think that these people whose spirits were committed to heady ideas and elegant language were constrained by their physical selves. Many people I met were writers working as hard as they could to get published. I would love to see that steadfast resolve applied to their own benefit. How I wish it could be.

It's in the bag!

A fellow weight-loss blogger, Leah, recently posted her weight loss as she visualized it in bags of sugar. What a great idea! Congratulations on your success, Leah!

Looking at those bags, it made me think of my own ah-ha moment last New Year's Eve when I bought a 10-pound bag of flour for a party game (go ahead... ask!). Looking at it, I realized that I had lost the equivalent of three 10-pound bags of flour. Thirty pounds doesn't sound like a whole lot to me, especially since I've interviewed people who have lost up to 220 pounds. But, looking at it in terms of pounds of sugar or flour -- and hefting those heavy bags! -- helped me see the accomplishment as the huge deal that it really is.

So... here's my success, in five-pound bags of flour. (Couldn't find 10-pound bags. Besides, it looks way more impressive this way!)

Jimmy Moore: Livin' La Vida Low-Carb

Jimmy Moore is Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb. That’s the name of his book, and it’s the theme of his life.

At age 32, Jimmy weighed 410 pounds. He was being treated for high cholesterol, high blood pressure and labored breathing. He had no hope for his life.

“I believed that was just the way I was supposed to be,” he says. “My family was fat, and I had been fat my whole life. My mom was a single mom who had to feed three growing kids, so she bought what she could afford, which was pretty much junk food.”

Over the years, Jimmy tried many diets, all of them low-fat. But even when he dieted, he piled on the sugar. “I was addicted to Twizzlers—a naturally fat-free food!” he says.

In 1999, he lost 170 pounds on a zero-fat diet. But he was grumpy and "psychologically messed up,” he says. And, ultimately, he couldn't stick with it. After one slip-up with a McDonald's meal, he quickly gained back all 170 pounds.

In the fall of 2003, Jimmy attended a church festival that featured a climbing wall. He thought that at 6-feet, 3-inches tall, getting to the top would be a breeze.

“I started up and on the first step, my foot slipped and I fell,” he says. “I tried again, and again I fell. On the third try, I slipped again and this time, I sprained my ankle.”

At that moment, the defeated climber thought to himself: “Jimmy, you are out of control!”

Jimmy knew two people who had succeeded on the Atkins diet. On January 4, 2004, he began. Right off, he ran into trouble. “That first day, I thought I was going to die. I had the worst headache, my body ached. I pleaded with my wife to just kill me,” he says.

Within a few days the symptoms subsided, and in two months, Jimmy lost 70 pounds. Some of the loss was undoubtedly because Jimmy started using a treadmill, but obviously, he was thriving on a diet comprising about 60-70 percent fat, but just 20 grams of carbohydrates a day, including two cups of low-carb vegetables.

In a little over a year, Jimmy lost 180 pounds. Today, he continues with Atkins, limits carbs to 30-35 grams a day, engages in aerobic exercise and works out with weights.

Succeeding at the Atkins diet has literally changed Jimmy Moore’s life. In 2005, he self-published Livin' La Vida Low-Carb: My Journey from Flabby Fat to Sensationally Skinny in One Year. He is at work on his second book, 21 Life Lessons From Livin' La Vida Low-Carb: How the Healthy Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He blogs, writes for nutrition and health-related websites, and creates podcasts and YouTube videos for the low-carb cause. Read Jimmy's blog here and tune into his podcasts here.

Jimmy pleads with others to take control of their lives, no matter what weight loss plan you choose.

“Do it like you’ve never done anything before,” he urges. “It’s not about will power; it’s about steadfast resolve. Commit to it, even when it hurts. It is so worth it.”

Politics, religion and the Atkins diet

We’ve all been warned not to mention politics or religion at the dinner table. You might want to add a third caveat: Don't bring up Robert Atkins either.

Atkins is, of course, the famous doctor and author whose diet advice turned conventional wisdom on its head with the publication in the 1970s of Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, updated today as Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution

At the time, almost every doctor, dietician and government researcher preached, “Eat less sugar. Eat less fat. Bread and potatoes are where it’s at!”

Dr. Atkins’ revolutionary thought was that it wasn't fat, but refined carbohydrates and starches that were making us fat. Most experts of the time—and still today—consider that fats, being calorie-dense, lead to obesity, and the name of the game is to cut calories. Dr. Atkins believed that carbohydrates are more directly linked to obesity because they stimulate the body’s production of insulin and cause it to store fat tissue.

I think that even before I knew about the Atkins diet, I tried it. One summer I had a job slinging hash on a steam line at a GM parts factory, hair net, scratchy uniform and all. I rebuffed the pressure from my fellow cafeteria workers to have a smoke, but when they talked up a diet that allowed me to eat the bacon, cheese, eggs and fried chicken we were serving up, I couldn’t resist. Hand me a tray fast, someone!

Apparently, I didn’t get the full Atkins memo, because while I happily mounded up my plate, I somehow didn’t get the message about cutting out the carbs. I came back for seconds on the French fries, bread and pieces of pie, too. Neither did the idea of lean sources of protein occur to me. Needless to say, my so-called diet didn’t work.

Today, the debate about the Atkins diet rages on. Does it work? Does it damage your heart? Yet without Dr. Atkins we probably wouldn't look at the nutrients in our food the way we do now. Virtually every diet in existence today suggests limiting your intake of refined sugars and flours.

Within the next few days, I'll be posting the story of one incredible Atkins dieter who lost 180 pounds -- and maintains his loss -- on the Atkins diet. He's one inspiring guy.

Healthy Eating: A First Lady's Cause

I must admit I'm fairly cynical about politics. Among the things I usually scoff at are the ubiquitous "First Lady causes." Lady Bird Johnson beautified the highways, Laura Bush read to children. Worthy causes, but how much impact do these initiatives really have?

Well, when I read an AOL article today on the White House Garden, Sowing the Future from Seeds of the Past, I must say I wished Michelle Obama well.

Not only is the First Lady using heirloom seeds from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello garden, but she also says that by planting a garden, she wanted to encourage her family -- as well as the nation -- to eat healthy meals and to eat meals together. It's about time someone in the limelight took the cause of healthy eating, and by extension overeating and obesity, seriously. Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee lost weight and wrote a book about it, Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork: A 12-Stop Program to End Bad Habits and Begin a Healthy Lifestyle, but there's nothing like a politician clad in jeans and wellies, digging in the dirt, to bring the message home!

The White House garden has already produced 400 pounds of vegetables! In the future, Mrs. Obama says she might sell produce from the garden at a farm stand outside the White House. While I think that would be a hoot -- how much would a Presidential Pepper go for? -- I think they ought to donate the produce to a local shelter or food bank. Two causes at once!