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?

How We Did It

Just dropping in for a moment to say...

My book of weight loss success stories, How We Did It, will be published in December!

In the book, I profile about 30 different people who lost weight in 30 different ways, from 20 pounds to 200 pounds. Everything from Atkins to the Zone, and everything in between.

Many of the people in the book have appeared previously in this blog, and some are new. All are inspiring! They set their goals, and they went on to achieve them. Over and over, I heard the word life-changing applied to the miracle of weight loss.

The message of my book is that weight loss isn't a one size fits all proposition. While many of the principles of weight loss are the same, the approaches that weight loss plans take are all different. Nothing in the book worked for everyone, but something worked for everyone

A great, big thank you to everyone you shared your success with me! Look for the book in December. After it is published, I hope to read about many more success stories!

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.

Todd P.: Sure thing, Coach!

Todd P. played football in high school, so when he decided to do something about his weight, he realized that to succeed he needed a player-coach relationship.

“I knew I hadn’t done anything about it before because no one was making me do it,” he says.

So, in 2005 Todd told his wife he didn’t want a tie or another shirt for Father's Day—he wanted a coach. “Help me find somebody who can help me lose weight,” he asked.

Although he was sincere, Todd, a salesman who works for an agent of a moving company, knew that he hadn’t entirely bought into the deal. “I asked my wife to do it for me because I was lazy,” he says. “And, I thought, ‘Now it’s off my back and she can’t blame me if it doesn’t work out… oh, and hand me another hamburger.’”

Todd’s wife presented him with a list of three personal trainers and he chose Derek Curtice, the founder of SimpleFit in Memphis. Even then, Todd wasn’t fully on board.

“I weighed about 280 lbs. Derek asked what my goal weight was, and I said I didn’t have one. I thought I could buy into losing maybe 25 or 30 pounds,” Todd recalls. “So Derek said, ‘Great, 200 pounds it is. Let's lose 80.’ And I’m thinking to myself, ‘This guy is crazy.’

Yet when Derek knocked on his door at 5 a.m. a few days later, Todd let him in. Todd says that at that moment he became committed to his weight loss “hook, line and sinker.”

The two worked out together for an hour three days a week, starting with simple squats and crunches and gradually adding in resistance bands and weights. Even after Derek left, Todd says he would work out another 20 to 30 minutes. On alternate days, Todd worked out on his own, following a 45-minute routine Derek created for him.

At the same time, Todd changed his eating habits. Making these changes was hard. “I traveled a lot in my job and I never ate breakfast,” Todd says. “By lunchtime, I’d be starving, so I’d really pound that all-you-can-eat buffet. If I was home, I’d have a bag of Cheetos before dinner, fall asleep watching TV and wake up at 10:30 for a glass of whole milk and chocolate chip cookies.”

It was also while traveling that Todd observed the habits of his co-workers and bosses and felt the stirrings of a desire to help himself.

“My bosses and I would plan to meet up at breakfast, and they’d get up early to work out. Meanwhile, I’m just wanting to sleep in,” Todd recalls. “But sometimes I’d go try out the treadmill—when no one was there—but after five minutes, I’d be thinking, ‘Forget this!’”

These habits and half-hearted attempts had their predictable effect. Todd gradually found maneuvering through life more difficult. Climbing two or three flights of stairs to meet with a client, Todd says he would have to walk around in the hallway for a few minutes so he wasn’t huffing and puffing when the client answered the door.

But now, Todd buckled down and gave it his all. Incredibly, in just a little over 10 months, Todd battled his weight down to 172 pounds—a loss of 105 pounds.

Today, at age 38 and maintaining at 175 pounds, Todd considers himself fortunate. He’s pleased that his life insurance carrier no longer considers him a high risk but has moved him into the “extremely preferred” category. But more importantly, he has a new outlook on the future.

“I want to be here to play with my son, and my son’s children. Derek and I would talk about family and he’d always say, ‘Do you know what a tremendous gift you’re giving to your wife and son? You’re going to be around for them,’” Todd says. “Derek more than gave me back my life. He gave me a new life.”

Daniel Greenlees: His ship came in

From the time he was 12, Daniel Greenlees’s family lived on a 65-foot sailboat. In November 2006, the boat was damaged in a storm and the family was forced to dock in Norfolk, Va.

The family rented an apartment in nearby Virginia Beach while they waited out the repairs. One day, Daniel took off his shirt, and his stepfather looked at him in alarm—ugly stretch marks sprawled across the boy’s chest. “We’ve got to do something about that,” he told Daniel. At 5-foot, 7 inches, Daniel weighed 236 pounds.

Daniel had always struggled with his weight. As a home-schooled teen, he would sit at the computer 14 or 15 hours a day, studying, eating, surfing and playing games. Not attending a traditional school and moving every few years, he had little contact with others. He didn’t mind that so much, though. When he was younger and attended public schools, he often found his interactions with other children painful.

“I had no trouble at a small school I attended, where no one picked on me,” Daniel says. “But at one large school, kids were not nice to me at all. They acted like a mob.”

A few times, Daniel and his mom tried to do something about the extra pounds. But good intentions can backfire.

“One time, my mom decided we were going to eat healthier food,” he says. “But instead of just buying some good things, that night for dinner she made her own pasta from scratch… from eggplant! It was awful.”

In Norfolk, the family’s apartment was just steps away from Jim White Fitness Studios. Daniel and his mother went over to check it out. He liked what he saw, and he knew it was time to act. “I knew this was the best opportunity I’d ever have to lose weight, and so I took it,” Daniel says.

Jim paired Daniel with personal trainer Eric McGlaughlin. The first thing he had the family do was clean out their pantry and refrigerator. “We threw out pancakes, waffles, toaster strudels, Hot Pockets, Poptarts, a lot of different things,” Daniel says. He and his mom went shopping for fruits, vegetables, lean meats and other healthy foods and began cooking low-fat, low-calorie meals.

Daniel worked two days a week with Eric and three days by himself, each time for 45 minutes to an hour and a half, splitting his time between cardio workouts and weight training. Although he was self-motivated, he credits Eric with much of his success. “I worked out as hard as I could, and Eric wouldn’t let me slack off,” Daniel says. “He could tell when I was getting bored, and he’d change things around to keep me motivated.”

Now 70 pounds lighter, Daniel loves being outdoors and he participates in sports. He says with wonder, but a little shyly, that girls are interested in him. He’s still amazed at how much he’s changed, when not so long ago his future looked hopeless.

“I used to see people jogging or playing games outdoors and I’d think, ‘Why do people want to do that?’” he remembers. “I was always tired before and I’d think to myself, ‘Why bother?’”

Today, Daniel has joined the Army, where fitness is a must, and he is stationed overseas.

“It’s nice fitting into decent clothes now. I’m able to get places—I can run up stairs—instead of moving at a waddling pace,” he says. “I can’t sit still all the time, like I used to. There are people out there I want to meet.”

And, judging from his newly found optimism for life, I bet those people want to meet Daniel, too.

Obesity and family food choices

I've been to two high school productions recently. One was a musical, the other a choral event. Let me tell you what I noticed. In the musical, of the performers who didn't have lead roles, I'd say about 1 in 4 was overweight. In the choral production, the ratio was even higher -- nine of the 13 singers were overweight and probably five of them would be considered obese. I was shocked.

But maybe that's just the way it is today. Bill Baroni, a well-known New Jersey politician who told me about his 132-pound weight loss, said that when he grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, he was the target of cruel comments and hurtful exclusion by other children because he was “the fat kid” in his class. But today, he speculated, kids might not have it so bad.

“Today, you’re not the only fat kid in the class,” he said. “You’re just one of many fat kids.”

In fact, that’s just what health researchers have found. In a 2002 survey, the National Center for Health Statistics calculated that about 17 percent of children over the age of six are overweight or obese—that’s around 13.5 million children. That number has more than doubled in the last few decades. And who knows what’s happened in the years since the survey.

Having a child myself, I don’t want to believe that the blame lies solely with parents. And, in fact, I don’t think it does. Read up on the food industry—Don’t Eat This Book by Morgan Spurlock or Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser—to come face to face with the powerful corporate forces that are battling us for our children’s health.

But we are not blameless. One Cornell University researcher has quantified just how much responsibility we as parents bear. In his book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, Brian Wansink examines the influence of the person in the family he calls “the nutritional gatekeeper.” That's the parent who does the menu planning, grocery shopping and cooking. Through extensive studies, Wansink found that this person is responsible for about 72 percent of a family’s food choices.

I was heartened by that number, because it means that in our own house we can control all but 28 percent of the food our child eats. But if I’m honest, I have to admit that the decisions we make aren’t always good. Grilled sausage-and-cheese sandwiches. Donuts. Cheese puffs. Pepperoni pizza. Of our own volition, we abdicate some of our responsibility on a daily basis.

I recently laid out on the kitchen table the typical foods my son eats during an average day. I checked labels, looked up nutritional information online and added up his intake of just one ingredient: sugar. I'll post the results soon.... as soon as I pick myself up off the floor!

Sandy Ward: In First Place

Can there be anything more disheartening than to have to quit as the leader of a weight loss group because you’ve gained too much weight? Sandy Ward was determined it wasn’t going to happen to her.

Sandy struggled with weight most of her life. She enjoyed those blissful early years of childhood without a thought about weight, but in her teens, she began a cycle of gaining weight and then thinning out as she grew taller.

With marriage and the birth of her son, Sandy’s weight continued to plague her. At her highest, she reached 234 pounds. She tried many times to get it under control and successfully got down to 140 at one point.

After her son went off to college, Sandy became a partner in a sporting goods store owned by a friend. They thrived in the niche market of skating and skateboard equipment. But over the years, her weight crept back on. Five years ago, having sold the business and retired, she wanted to do something to help herself. One Sunday, she found her opportunity.

“I was sitting in church waiting for the service to begin when I saw an ad for a First Place group that was starting up at my church,” she says. “The ad just clicked with me somehow. I guess I was just ready for it.”

Sandy went to the first meeting and liked both the people and the program of Bible study and group prayer, as well as the nutritional program of dietetic exchanges. Over the course of the 13-week program, she lost 40 pounds. But when it came time for the second session, the leader had moved away, and the group had dwindled to just three women. They decided to continue anyway. And Sandy made another decision.

“I’m not the kind of woman who gets up in front of everyone and speaks,” she says. “But I thought that becoming the leader of this group might be a good ministry for me.”

Eventually, even as the group's leader, she began to put on extra pounds. In January 2007, she had another decision to make.

“The First Place people told me that often when leaders gain weight, they just quit, and I didn’t want to do that,” Sandy says. “I made a vow to God that I was going to take that weight off. I made a date and when that date came, that was it. Vows to God are serious!”

Returning to the First Place plan, Sandy cut back to a 1,200-calorie daily diet. She and her husband switched to mostly organic foods, and their menu became fairly simple. Gone now are the extras she enjoyed. “No more desserts and no more fancy Starbucks coffees!” she laughs. She walks and exercises to a DVD included in the First Place member kit.

This time, Sandy's weight loss quest wasn’t a matter of a silent vow. She was still a First Place leader. “I had to do it in front of everyone,” she says. “It’s hard to face your own demons and the people who have seen you fail.” Yet, in six months, Sandy lost 37 pounds.

Today, the First Place program is thriving at Berwyn Baptist Church in Maryland. Sandy says that usually around 20 people are signed up. Sandy often offers the program for subgroups like diabetics. To Sandy, First Place is more than a weight loss group. Group members make a commitment to deal with anything in their life that is out of balance. During one session, three people successfully quit smoking. And, Sandy feels that as a leader she benefits even more than the group’s members.

“God has given me such a love and compassion for people with weight problems,” she says. “When I see them, I just think, ‘Oh, bless your heart,’ because I know the humiliation of it all.”

Roni Noone: A new mom's plan

Most women plan for a healthy pregnancy. Roni Noone had a plan for after her pregnancy.

Two weeks after giving birth to her son, Roni walked into her local Weight Watchers meeting, baby in tow. She weighed in at 206 pounds, but she wasn’t discouraged. "I knew what to do. Everything was in my corner. I was confident, even looking forward to it," she says.

From her teen years on, Roni remembers being heavy. One childhood moment haunts her. "I was 12 and I weighed about 150 pounds," she recounts. "A very tall male family member said to me, ‘We weigh the same.’ I was devastated."

Roni began skipping meals, lying to her mother about having eaten, hiding food to eat later by herself. At 14, she took a job at a McDonald's, where she made her own concoctions, grilling huge burgers in sausage grease, making sundaes with strawberry and chocolate toppings.

Alternating with bouts of sporadic dieting, Roni's weight yo-yoed. She graduated from high school a size 12. But leaving college, she weighed in the 180s, and in graduate school, 210. She wore a size 16 suit to her graduation, a size 18 while job interviewing.

Roni decided in January 2000 to try again. She tried zero-calorie diets, a weight loss clinic, diet pills. She had the most success with a low-carb diet, getting down to 155 pounds, but she was miserable. “I was obsessed. I agonized over every decision,” she says. “I just couldn't eat that way long term.”

In 2004, Roni and her husband began to talk about starting a family. Roni knew she had to find a healthy way to lose weight. Weight Watchers fit the bill. "For someone like me, it's perfect," she says. "I love keeping statistics, plotting my progress, going to meetings and weighing in."

In fact, Roni loved the supportive atmosphere of the meetings. "I was glad to have people to ask questions of, somewhere I could go for reputable answers," she says. "Before, it was always me just popping pills by myself, just me trying to make it work."

Roni lost 11 pounds over the next four weeks on the Flex Plan. But then, she discovered she was pregnant, and the deal was off. "I did eat healthy foods throughout my pregnancy, but I ate excessively," Roni admits. "I ate entire cantaloupes, banana smoothies, fried foods, burgers. I ate for eating's sake. I felt it was my last hurrah."

Not surprisingly, Roni gained 70 pounds in her pregnancy. Coming home from the hospital in June 2004, she weighed 225 pounds. But this time she knew what to do. Adopting the Weight Watchers plan for nursing mothers, Roni began to steadily lose weight, most often just two pounds a week. By January 2005, she had reached her goal weight of 149.

In Weight Watchers, portions of food are awarded points by their nutritional value, and Roni welcomed the challenge. "The plan appealed to my creative side. I was excited about figuring out how to eat the biggest portions possible for the lowest amount of points and still eat foods I enjoyed," she says. "I make the best burger ever, on an English muffin, with spinach and pickles, and it has only four points."

Roni began walking with Ryan on her back, dancing around the house with him. She shut off the television and took the stairs instead of the elevator. In 2007, she joined a Y and began using a treadmill and reclining bike. She graduated to cardio, cycling and step classes and, eventually, 5K races.

Today, at 5-feet, nine inches, Roni weighs 144 pounds and wears a size 6. Although she doesn’t consciously count points, her eating habits are ingrained. She makes meatballs with ground turkey, weighs the cheese for a baked ziti, divides meals and snacks into rough point estimates. Roni blogs about her weight loss success, which she says keeps her on track. Ultimately, though, Roni gives her son all the credit for her success.

"I didn't want to be an afraid-to-have-fun mom, a mom who sits out, who won't put on a bathing suit because she's ashamed of her body," she says. "My son gave me all the motivation I needed. He has given me a renewed sense of life and purpose."

I'm Over the Moon with my Over the Top award

It was so nice to log on this morning to my blog and find a little "award" from my fellow blogger, Leah. What makes me feel even better is that she says on her blog that she finds the success stories that I write about here motivating for her in her weight loss journey. That's what it's all about! Thank you, Leah!

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!

Six years later...

A while back, I posted my "before" photo. It's the one that made me realize I needed to do something about my weight. In it, I'm heading down the sidewalk with my son on his first day of kindergarten six years ago.

I never took a real before photo. I started my weight loss journey with the decision not to do what I'd done on other "diets." No setting timed goals, no tracking my progress. I just decided to start exercising moderately and eating moderately and see what happened. What happened was that over five years I lost 30 pounds.

I still haven't taken a real after photo. But I was delighted to see this photo taken in the same spot, on the way to my son's fifth-grade graduation. Look at the smiling mom! Although she's not showing any skin, and pretty much hiding her waistline with a sweater, she's clearly a shadow of her former self. (And to prove that, I guess I've got to post the before photo, too. Ah well.)

I must say, though, that I don't obsess about how I look. It's how I feel. Those 30 extra pounds weighed more heavily on my mind than on my body. I'm still astounded at how free I feel, how comfortable in my own skin (well, at least when I have clothes on). I don't have to think about how to stand to look less heavy, or dress to "hide" those extra pounds. Such a relief. I still could use a personal shopper, though ... clearly, I haven't got the least idea how to dress at a normal weight!

Why did I wait so long?

When I think about why I waited so long to do something about my weight, I can come up with a lot of reasons. I had my own business. I was caring for our son, volunteering at his school, all while trying to remain viable in my profession. To keep up, I reasoned, I needed to read widely and write every day, not be checking in at the front desk for a spin class.

But, to be honest, my biggest hindrance was myself. I denied the truth; I didn’t want to admit I looked and felt as bad as I did. For the longest time, the mirror lied to me. It lies to most of us, in fact. Very few people see themselves as others do. One Pew Research Center study found that while nine in 10 people believe that most of their fellow Americans are overweight, only four in 10 see themselves as overweight.

Even when faced with the truth, I firmly believed that I could take care of the situation, if and when I wanted to. After all, I was my own boss. Nobody was going to tell me what to do. Ultimately, though, I was humbled to realize that I was guilty of one of those old-fashioned, outdated Seven Deadly Sins. No, not Gluttony, but Pride.

I didn’t want anyone’s help, even though it was obvious I wasn’t helping myself. I was doing just fine by myself, thank you very much. It’s nonsensical that just when I was feeling the worst about myself, I was the most prideful, but there it is. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” the Lord observes in the book of Jeremiah.

I thought people who paid money for gyms were frivolous, that people who bought prepared meals from weight loss programs were lazy. That these morally defective people were just going to give up anyway, so why were they even bothering? Inwardly, I scoffed at those hyper people who ran, biked, walked, or worked out at home. Surely, I make better use of my time, I crowed to myself.

When my day of reckoning came, it was a huge hurdle to admit that I needed help. For me, the solution was to join a gym. Still, I’m pretty much anonymous there. I go in, swim my laps and leave. I like to go during the day with all the seniors, when all is calm and they haven’t cranked up the music yet for the after-work muscle crowd.

Anyone who decides to act will face the same question: How much personal attention do I want—-or need—-from others to succeed? It helps to know yourself: Are you a person who will exercise only in a class setting? Or are you a private person who would rather die than show up in spandex at a jock gym? Could meeting one-on-one with a personal trainer keep you motivated? Or would you thrive with the encouragement of a support group? You're in this for the long term, so it pays to make a good decision upfront. Or, to change direction quickly when you find something isn't working for you. So, what's holding you back, and how do you think can you overcome it and get going?

Christina Chapan: In it for life

Many a diet has begun with the goal of fitting into a bridal dress. For Christina Chapan, though, it was the role of bridesmaid that started her down the aisle to fitness.

Chris says that as a child she hated physical activity. “I wasn’t coordinated at all,” she says. She always loved to eat, a passion she allowed to flourish in college. At 5-feet, 4 inches and her heaviest weight of 156 pounds, she wore a size 16. Her moment of truth came when her younger sister announced she was getting married.

“I didn’t want to be a fat bridesmaid,” Chris says, “especially as the older, spinster sister!”

Chris went on a low-fat diet, a program she found easier to follow than other “counting” programs. “Counting calories is hard,” she says. “Counting fat grams, you just stop at 20 and you’re done for the day.” In six months, she lost 30 pounds and fit into a size 6 dress.

After her sister's wedding, Chris took a teaching job and got married. Within a year of her marriage, she went back up three dress sizes. Over the years, the stresses of her job caused her to fall into some bad habits that led to more weight gain.

“When you’re working until 7 or 8 o’clock at night and you’re tired, those salty chips and jelly beans look awfully good,” she says.

In 2002, the youth pastor at her church recommended Bill Phillips’s Body for Life program. The 12-week exercise and nutrition challenges appealed to Chris. She relished the discipline of writing down the details of what she ate, her exercise regime and her progress. Within a year, she completed four challenges, losing 20 pounds and toning up her body in a way she had never experienced before.

Since then, Chris has remained on Body for Life, although by now it’s simply her way of life. She exercises and weight trains, and runs with her running club buddies on the weekends. She has become a certified personal trainer and leads after-school fitness programs. She has completed 17 half marathons, 4 full marathons and 3 ultra marathons. Recently, she has taken up sprint triathlons and competed in two. At 134 pounds, she wears a size 4-6. (In the photo, Chris is pointing to her name on the roster of her first marathon.)

Chris revels in her job as a special education teacher in a Chicago suburb, and maintains her conviction that a person has to carve out time for her passions, especially fitness. “You have to say, ‘This is my time, and this is my way of dealing with stress,’” she says.

Chris appreciates that Body for Life allows for a little cheating. “You eat in a very healthy way for six days, and then you can have one day, or three meals, that are not what you’d call healthy,” she says. For her, that means that on Friday mornings when the teachers and school staff host breakfasts, she can enjoy herself. And, on a recent cruise, she says she didn't restrict any foods but ate in moderation.

In the past year Chris has learned the importance of enjoying time with her husband and friends. "You can make time for what you want to, and fitness is a priority for me," she says, "but balance is the key."

Make just one decision

My son is a passionate baseball player. I'm certain he'll be the next Jorge Posada! We'll be the proud mama and papa sitting in the stands at Yankee Stadium some day.

I'm continually astonished that season after season Evan wants to get back out there and play again. The game is so brutal on a child's psyche. In this great American game, there are so many opportunities to fail... strike outs, errors, pass balls, wild pitches, humiliating losses in spring ball, fall ball and tournament ball.

At the beginning of his tournament season this year, Evan struggled at bat. He had never faced this frustration before. He tends to get on base most of the time, either with a single or a walk. As a batter, he's got great patience at the plate. He makes us nervous... we call him Full Count Kennedy.

But now he was striking out just about every game, and he was getting down on himself. We didn't seem able to help him, no matter how much time my husband had him out there taking pitches. What was going wrong?

I mentioned his struggle to his coaches and asked if someone could help him with his swing. One of the coaches said he knew what the problem was and how he could help. I was so relieved!

But, you know, it wasn't a mechanical fix the coach had in mind. No. He thought Evan's problem at the plate was mental. Here is what was going on in Evan's head. When he got to the plate, he'd be thinking: Should I swing or shouldn't I swing? Is it a strike or a ball? Should I let it go or go for it?

Instead, his coach said, Evan should go to the plate with just one thought: I'm going to swing. He should be ready to swing at every pitch. At the last second, if the pitch looks like a ball, just lay off it. Heading to the plate with just one thought in mind clears all the clutter and focuses the batter on one objective... to get a hit.

I've thought of that advice as I've been maintaining my 30-pound weight loss. Every morning, I get up with just one thought: I'm going to eat for my health today. Every other time I've tried to lose weight, I've always had this never-ending internal dialog: Should I eat this or shouldn't I? Can't I just have it this once and then tomorrow I'll start again? Why can't I have this when everybody else can? Maybe just this time.

So, to maintain my weight I've found the key is to clear the clutter in my head. Make my resolve to eat healthfully first thing in the morning. I can decide at the last second to allow myself a treat, but I make it a single, not a double or a triple. For me, that's a home run! (And, do you know what? Evan's hitting again, too!)

Summertime and the swimmin' is easy

In July and August, I freeze my gym membership and swim laps in our local swimming hole, The Quarry. It's a spring-fed quarry (you guessed it!) on beautiful camp-like grounds. We began going there when Evan was just a few years old and could play in the shallow pool.

The first couple of days there always make me feel like a beginning swimmer. It's entirely different to swim in a lake than in a pool. You can't put your feet down (60 feet of murky water below me!) and you're not pushing off the sides of a pool, fooling yourself into thinking what a great swimmer you are.

It's tiring! Fifteen minutes at the quarry is probably like a half hour in a pool. But it's beautiful and if I get there first thing, no one's arrived yet and it's peaceful. One time, it started to rain when I was in the middle of the quarry. Level with the water, I was surrounded by the pings of millions of raindrops all around me. I didn't want to leave when the lifeguard blew his whistle!

The best part of the quarry is that it's just 5 minutes from my house, instead of 15 minutes to the gym. So easy to get 30 minutes of laps in. I've lost a lot of my fear of gaining back my weight because of the quarry. If I gain a pound or two over the winter, I know I'll work it off in the summer because I swim almost every day. The only downside is having to wash my hair every day. It would be so much easier to be a runner! But boring, no?!

P.S. That's not me jumping off the high dive!

Chips: How to eat just one (or two)

I read a fascinating article on Salon this morning about why food is so addictive. For the article, Why We Can't Eat Just One, Katherine Mieszkowski interviewed Dr. David Kessler, a San Francisco Bay Area pediatricion who has written a book titled The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite

Dr. Kessler says that that it's not a simple lack of willpower that causes us to overeat. The brain, he says, creates strong neural pathways that make it nearly impossible to resist our cravings. Every time we face an addictive food -- mostly loaded with fat, sugar and salt -- we have an internal dialog that strengthens the pathways. Something like: "Yow. That would taste good. But, no, I shouldn't. But I really want it. Maybe just a little."

Add to that the stimulus that is created by alluring food packaging and advertising, restaurant decor, lighting and music, easy access on every corner, the linking of food and entertainment and you're battling an entire environment, not just a food. And most food, he says, is "adult baby food." It goes down so easy we chew only two or three times, gulp it down, and reach for the next chip.

Chips! Why did he have to mention them?? My one weakness. After reading Brian Wansink's book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More than We Think, I've adopted his suggestion that you set "food rules" and "food prohibitions" for yourself. Rules mean you regulate the addictive food in some way, prohibitions mean you can't eat it at all.

When it comes to chips, here are my rules. I can have chips, but I can't buy them. If I have chips, I can't have dip. (That makes me eat more, plus dip has mucho calories.) If I have dip, I have to dip with veggies. When I have chips, I can't drink anything. (Thirst makes me stop sooner.)

How about you? What rules or prohibitions help you curb your cravings?