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!

Fred Schenck: "Avoid the whites"

Fred Schenck, a retired human resources executive for Cunard Line, was cruising along in retirement.

He had enjoyed a high-profile career working for Donald Trump, New York City mayor David Dinkins and the Kennedy administration. Yet now, Fred was enjoying his life on the West Coast of Florida. An avid golfer, he and his wife Quinta also liked to travel, particularly enjoying—what else?—cruises.

So, he was a bit dismissive a few years ago when his doctor suggested that to lower his blood pressure, Fred should take off some weight.

“I ignored him,” Fred admits. “I was married to Mrs. Haagen Dazs and I couldn’t see myself changing. I just thought that high blood pressure was a fairly typical complaint.”

At 5-foot, 10-inches, Fred’s top weight was 228 pounds. He dealt with the situation by making sure his clothes fit well and flattered his frame. Yet even his tailor had something to say. “He'd tell me, ‘Schenck, take off the weight,’” Fred says. But still, he thought nothing of downing a half pint of ice cream every night.

Fred’s penchant for sweets had its roots in childhood. “There was a drugstore on my newspaper route," he recalls. "Every time I earned an extra 35 or 40 cents, I’d stop at the soda fountain for ice cream sodas or milk shakes.”

As Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce for President Kennedy, Fred mingled in the Beltway’s social circles. And, his career in high-end leisure and travel businesses did nothing to curb his appetites. “In the hotel business I had free reign in five different restaurants. I could eat anything at any time,” Fred says. “You develop bad habits that way.”

In March 2007, Fred’s doctor spoke up again. Fred’s glucose levels indicated that he might be developing diabetes. This time, Fred listened.

At his then-current weight of 216 pounds, not only did Fred “divorce Mrs. Haagen Dazs,” but he went a step further. Humorously, he calls his approach “avoiding the whites.” Here’s what disappeared from his diet: white flour, white rice, sugar and some dairy. It took a little re-education. After all, Fred reasoned, isn’t “enriched flour” good for you?

Fred and his wife substituted higher fiber, whole grain “brown” products—brown rice and whole wheat flour. Fortunately, Quinta enjoys cooking this way. “She loves these kinds of challenges,” Fred says.

And, Fred curbed his appetite for sweets. “We have a number of lovely candy dishes, and they’re all empty,” Fred notes, with both pride and wistfulness. In addition, Fred began to walk in his golf community 40 to 45 minutes a day.

Over eight months, Fred brought his weight down to 188 pounds and lost two inches off his waist. “I made my tailor happy,” Fred says. “I sent two jackets back to have them altered for my new size.”

Not only that, but by grounding his diet in high-fiber whole grains, he has moderated the sugar rushes of white flour and sugar. He takes a low dose of blood pressure medication, but his doctor hasn’t mentioned diabetes again.

These days, Fred gets his rushes from a different source—compliments. “I was at a function recently and someone said to me, ‘Fred, you look 15 years younger,'” he says. “That feels good. ”

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!

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!

Let the laps begin

Once I decided it was time to tackle my weight problem, I joined a gym and started swimming laps. It's so easy to write that, but I still can't believe I actually did it. Join a gym? Me? The word itself conjures up visions of that tortuous place where you donned horrible mustard-yellow "gym suits" and failed miserably at scaling those blasted ropes and poles.

I don't part with money easily -- just ask my husband... frugal is the kind word for me! -- so to plunk down $500+ upfront and agree to $60/month was a huge commitment for me. I was ready, though, and mentally I agreed with myself to swim three times a week.

At first the going was slow. I dragged myself to the gym. Once there, I swam in fits and starts, bored, easily tired, in a constant argument with myself. Seniors in surrounding lanes passed me easily. Lifeguards made for the nearest chair, equipment at the ready. Once, a friend knifing through the water in full Speedo regalia shouted over, "Don’t give up!" just when I thought I was doing pretty good.

For almost a year, I saw little progress. A year! I guess swimming isn't the most effective means of weight loss. Well, at least if you're more like a barge in the water than a skiff. Not only that, but no one else really noticed any difference either. I wasn't buoyed by the encouraging comments of an admiring horde.

Yet I was ready. I was determined. Now that I've talked with many people about their weight loss, I can tell when someone has gotten to that point. You hear it in their voice. It's time to act and there's no going back.

And, guess what? Those 30 minutes, three times a week slowly added up. Today, almost five years later, I'm 30 pounds lighter. I know, five years. Rome obviously wasn't dismantled in a day in my case. But I'm happy as long as the needle on the scale is going in the right direction.

Today, many thousands of laps later, I weigh 127 pounds and have dropped three sizes. Buying my latest swimsuit, I felt almost dizzy taking size 10s into the dressing room. (Okay, if it's humid and sticky, I can barely hoist the thing onto my body, but it's a 10!)

The lightness extends to my mood, too. I have a new relationship with food. I neither crave it nor fear it. It’s not the enemy anymore. Neither am I the enemy. I don't hate myself every time I pick up a fork. The enmity with my body is over, too. My debilitating back troubles are gone. And my stubbornly high blood pressure has dropped back to normal.

Although William Faulkner once said that the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself, I'm happy to write about the end of my battle. I hope you'll know the joy of ending this one monstrous inner conflict once and for all, too.

My moment of truth

It's so easy to post someone else's before photo! So hard to post your own. But here goes.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a "triggering event" that made me realize I had to do something about my weight. It was this photo. My husband took it of Evan and me heading down the sidewalk on his first day of kindergarten.

I thought that I would cherish this photo forever. That it would go into a photo album that we would leaf through with pleasure. That through the years it would call up memories of sweet times with our son.

NOT! When I saw this, this is what I thought: How can this possibly be me? The shock of it is so great, I don't even see my beautiful son, can't remember my thoughts on that walk. It's a moment that is forever lost to me. It makes me sad.

But, ultimately, this photo does document a turning point. Not the one I was expecting--a rite of passage for my son--but one that changed the direction of my own life. It took me another year to act, but eventually this photo provided the punch in the gut (or really, the butt) I needed to take charge of my health and weight.

Maybe one day, I'll be able to look at this photo with pride, both for myself and my son. It's been almost six years, though, and I still can't bear to look at it. I haven't really taken an after photo yet--certainly not one from behind! But I've lost 30 pounds so far and have just 5 to go. I'll post a true after shot soon. Maybe I'll actually be able to look at that one!

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?

Karen Freberg: An athlete in transition

My Freberg Fest continues!

Mom Laura and Dad Roger had their say in my last two posts. Together, this family has lost about 275 pounds. Daughter Karen got the ball rolling.

Karen is a powerful athlete. In college, she was a four-time All-American shot-putter, earned four national power lifting records, and was a finalist in the 2004 Olympic Trials.

On graduating from the University of Southern California, six-foot tall Karen weighed 285 pounds and wore a size 26 pants. This is not an unusual weight for a woman of her sport. But after her track and field career ended, she wanted to lose her "thrower's weight."

"Since I was retired, I knew that I had to lose the weight," Karen says. "The habits I had after 10 years of eating with the football players just weren’t working."

In October 2006, Karen and her mom signed up at their local Jenny Craig office. Karen likes the simplicity of the system, one that she believes is great for athletes in transition.

“I would recommend Jenny Craig to any athlete who has finished their athletic career,” she says.

Lately, Karen has added exercise classes into her day, including spin and kickboxing, and last year she competed in her first 5k -- a feat she finds amazing because for a thrower, she says, a lap around the track is a long-distance run.

To date, Karen has lost 85 pounds and she wears a size 8/10. She wants to lose another few pounds while she pursues her doctorate in communications and public relations at the University of Tennessee. She'll celebrate her three-year anniversary on Jenny Craig in November.

"I am extremely thankful to Jenny Craig for helping me with my weight loss. I feel healthier, more active, and I get to wear fashionable clothes in sizes that I always dreamed about!" Karen says. "It’s been one of the best decisions that I have ever made for my health – and it's been great having my family on it as well."

You can follow Karen's adventures at http://karenfreberg.com/blog/ Congratulations, Karen!

Roger Freberg: The chef slims down

In my last post, Laura Freberg shared her weight loss success story. She lost 80 pounds using Jenny Craig.

But Laura isn't the only person in her household with a story to tell. Look at this photo... left to right, that's Roger (Laura's husband), their daughter Karen and Laura in 2006, before their weight loss. Look back in my last post at Roger and Laura's after photo. Amazing!

Roger is a former pro-football player. He was an athlete at UCLA and drafted in 1974 by the Los Angeles Ram as a defensive lineman. After his playing days were over, Roger admits to carrying over his eating habits. "I estimate I consumed about 10,000 calories a day," he says. In this photo, the 6’4” tall Roger is about 325 pounds.

Roger’s career as a product manager for Nestle and Mars, and then his retirement hobby as the family chef, furthered his predicament. At one time, he weighed over 400 pounds and was diagnosed with diabetes. He managed to bring his weight down to 325 pounds on an exchange plan.

One day in December 2006, he happened past the kitchen table, where Laura and Karen were having Jenny Craig cupcakes.

“I said, ‘What’s that?’ I didn’t realize I could have something like a cupcake and still lose weight,” Roger says. He became the third family member to sign up.

It’s ironic that one of the Frebergs’ most passionate shared hobbies is cooking. About once a week, they take a Jenny Craig break, and the Freberg kitchen turns out the likes of seafood gumbo, lasagna, crab quiche, prime rib dinners, stuffed bell peppers, raisin-blueberry cinnamon rolls, raspberry chocolate truffle cake and strawberry-amarula cheesecake.

To counterbalance the damage their hobby could inflict, the family freezes leftovers in appropriate meal-size portions. “We have about a thousand freezer containers,” Laura says.

For exercise, Roger and Laura walk about two miles a day. With this routine, Roger maintains a loss of about 80 pounds. You can follow Roger at http://www.rogerfreberg.com/

Stay tuned for more stories from the Freberg family!