Miracles and Moments of Grace

I've totally ignored this blog, haven't I?!? Well, here's the reason. My book of stories told by military chaplains, Miracles and Moments of Grace has been released. An exciting time for me!

I need to focus on getting the word out about the book, so I'll have to go silent here. Just when I thought I was finished!

If you have a friend or family member in the military, know a veteran, or are in the military yourself, this would be a great book to give as a gift. In it, I tell fifty stories about military life as seen through the eyes of its chaplains.

I'm so glad now that I made the effort to take off my excess weight. I'm confident and happy when I greet people at book events and I don't mind when someone whips out a camera.

So, whether I check in here or not, I want you to know that I'm still keeping my weight off. I hope you are too!

Me, in the Soup

Every year at this time, I'd join the millions of Americans who swore that this year -- this year for sure! -- they would win the battle with their weight.

Not this year! This year, the story of my weight loss success is in the new Chicken Soup book, Shaping the New You, along with 100 other inspiring stories.

What I found was not that I needed some grand goal and rock-solid resolve, but that I didn't need any goal at all and only daily resolve. Once I dropped the pressure of a goal -- lose 10 pounds by X's wedding! fit into a size 10 by summer! -- I was free to begin my quest simply because it was the right thing to do for my health.

Many of the other stories in the book are far more inspiring than mine -- people who lost 100 pounds or more, people whose lives were entirely changed. But I won my 30-pound battle and for the first time in my life I feel free. Food isn't the enemy anymore. I'm not the enemy.

Whatever your goal is this New Year -- or your non-goal! -- I wish you success and freedom as well.

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.

My Maginot line

In my weight loss journey, I haven’t much counted things. Even given my history as a financial journalist and my role as the family banker, tax preparer and investment manager, my interest in numbers as applied to weight loss has been approximately nil.

I balance my meals between proteins, carbs and fats. I estimate the caloric content of my snacks. I eyeball portion sizes. Despite an upbringing that forbade card games, I can tell you when a piece of chicken is the size of a pack of cards. I watch the clock when I exercise, but I don’t own a heart rate monitor. My blood pressure is trending downward, but I don’t know from day to day how it’s doing. Nothing about the numbers has been exact.

But this might all change. Just recently, I discovered how motivating numbers can be.

A few days ago, I stepped on the scale, something I do only sparingly. I don’t own a scale, but once in a while, when I’m feeling brave, or think I might need to bring myself into line, I step on the digital scale at the gym.

I dread scales, having long suffered their unforgiving stubbornness. For years, I’ve battled my own personal Maginot Line—the nearly unbreachable line of defense that bars me from the 120s. I did breach the line last year, getting down to 128, but a hamstring injury over the winter put me back into the 130s.

When I stepped on the scale this time, the digital readout wavered, the number beyond the decimal point blinked back and forth. And finally—it settled. At 129.8. I had broken through again!

Granted, 0.2 is not a significant number. You can gain or drop that amount just reading the paper. But instantly, I became motivated to claim that weight. To make it solidly mine, to bully my weight down one tenth of a point at a time. I vowed to do whatever it takes—count calories, fat grams, vegetable and fruit servings, the minutes I can stand to be hungry and not reach for food, one extra lap in the pool, one more minute on the clock.

I regret now that I didn’t put the numbers to work for me from the start. It might not have taken me four long years, and thousands of laps, to drop three dress sizes. Many people already know this. I'm betting you do.

Boys and their appetites

In my last post, I profiled Daniel Greenlees, a teenager who lost 70 pounds at a gym with the help of a personal trainer. The topic brought up some questions for me: How much do teen boys eat anyway? Should you limit calories or carbs or anything? Or should you just encourage more activity?

I had two sisters, who each had two girls. I had no close male cousins or even an uncle. By having a boy, I broke up the family sorority. So I know nothing about boys and their eating habits. But I hear they're prodigious. Already, I feel like a short-order cook. The eating orgy seems to last from the minute he's home from school to the minute he goes to bed.

As my son approaches puberty, I can see his body changing. He's not a stick on chicken legs any more. But I don't know what's normal. Will he pack on pounds and then stretch out? Should I be concerned about his dimply middle? Or should I just trust that he'll get enough exercise to even it all out in the end? His diet is not the worst it could be, but it's not the best. Should I keep a closer eye on sugars and fats?

Any advice from you who have experience feeding boys would be great. I'm totally in the dark here. My mother says she had -- and lost -- a monumental battle with me and my sisters over breakfast. We refused to eat it apparently. She finally gave in. Should I be worried about my son's habits yet? Or should I just give in and hope for the best?

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.

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.

Me in the Soup, Chicken that is

I love soup, all kinds of it. Corn chowder, lobster bisque, roasted sweet potato, onion soup. But my favorite? Chicken Soup... for the Soul, that is.

I got word this week that the Chicken Soup for the Soul folks accepted a story of mine for one of their collections: Shaping the New You. It's the story of my weight loss success. Woo hoo! Look for it in December, just in time for another round of New Year's resolutions.

If you're a writer (and I know from all your blogs that you are!) take a look at the Chicken Soup website for their books in progress. I submitted two or three stories before this one was chosen. I'd like to give the book on grandmothers a try. Already pondering memories of my wonderful grandmothers!

Pastor Robert Hartwell: The Skinny on Sacrifice

Most people make weight loss resolutions only after the annual holiday binge. But it was on New Year’s Eve 2007 that the Rev. Robert Hartwell’s weight-loss odyssey came to a dramatic close. That morning, he stepped on a scale on NBC’s Today Show in front of 10 million people.

Just how the pastor of Village Lutheran Church in Bronxville, NY, got to this point began two years earlier. Pastor Hartwell's church had started a campaign to pay down an $8 million mortgage the church had assumed for a building project.

One day, Pastor Hartwell got a baffling call. A former parishioner, someone who kept close ties with the church, offered to make a substantial donation. But there was a catch. “This donor said that he wanted me to commit to losing 70 pounds, and if I did so, he would donate $5,000 for each pound I lost,” he says.

It was both an intriguing and a heartbreaking offer. “I was crushed—mortified—that someone had discovered that I was overweight, although of course everyone saw it when I stepped into the pulpit each week,” Pastor Hartwell says. “But this donor said he wanted to know that I was as committed to the project as he was.”

So was born “The Skinny on Sacrifice” campaign. Although up this point Pastor Hartwell hadn’t acknowledged his weight problem, he certainly understood how it had happened.

“My life is so hectic. I was always eating on the run. I’d grab a muffin between hospital visits, get home from council meetings at 10:30 at night, exhausted and ravenous, and grab a couple of sandwiches and chips,” he says. “And I was a volume eater—I could eat a half a pizza by myself, or eight White Castle burgers at a time.”

By the time the sly donor came into the picture, the six-foot-tall pastor weighed about 270 pounds. After consulting with his parish nurse practitioner, Pastor Hartwell took up the challenge, choosing NutriSystem for his meals.

On a food plan of about 1,500 calories a day, Pastor Hartwell lost 10 pounds almost immediately, and he continued to lose two to three pounds a week. He and his wife, Sue, had always walked for pleasure, and he made sure he got in two to three miles a day. After six months, he started going to the gym at next-door Concordia College, where he is an adjunct professor. A congregant who is a personal trainer showed him how to use the machines. He found the college atmosphere stimulating. “I was there with the 19- and 20-year old baseball players, and they motivated me to keep going,” he says.

Meanwhile, an employee at the church’s school who happened to be a lighting director for the Today Show brought the pastor’s challenge to the attention of a producer. The producer asked whether Pastor Hartwell would be willing to weigh in on the show the morning of December 31, 2007.

“I had already told the donor that I wouldn’t weigh in during a church service, and here I was agreeing to do it in front of a live audience on national television,” he laughs. “Barring Jesus projecting it in the sky over the earth, it couldn’t get any bigger than that!"

Just before Pastor Hartwell stepped out onto the stage, someone clipped a microphone to the back of his shirt. “This thing must weigh five pounds!” he protested. No matter. Robert made the donor’s 70-pound limit, with 8 extra pounds in the bargain. The donor wrote a check for $390,000, which church members augmented for an even $400,000.

Since then, Pastor Hartwell has lost 18 more pounds, bringing his total to 96. And, while he originally targeted 200 as his goal weight, he now wants to see 170—a total loss of 100 pounds. He still uses NutriSystem, and intends to continue even after reaching his goal.

In 2008, Pastor Hartwell challenged his congregation and the church's school to join the Skinny on Sacrifice II challenge. Over 200 people took it on and by last year had lost over 3,000 pounds. Many participants reported improved blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels, allowing many to reduce or eliminate medications to treat those conditions.

Pastor Hartwell says he now believes that weight loss is not only an individual pursuit yielding personal satisfaction, but a goal with wide-ranging possibilities for strengthening family and community ties. “Food is a short cut. Food is really a substitute for spending time with each other. I just decided we weren't going to do that anymore," he says.

Weight loss is contagious!

I've been talking with my sister a lot on the phone recently. Our family is getting together for Thanksgiving, so there are some culinary logistics to work out. I thought ahead and bought lots of local New Jersey sweet corn this fall, cooked and cut it off the cob and froze it to take to New York with me. I made applesauce, too, using my grandmother's recipe. (You leave the skins of the apples on when you cook them, so the applesauce has a nice rosy pink color. I use half Macs and half Cortlands.) My parents are making our family's favorite, a broccoli and bleu cheese casserole... it wouldn't be a holiday without it!

Add all that to the usual menu -- turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, glazed carrots, etc. -- and this is going to be one groaning table. But, you know what?! I am DETERMINED that I will NOT be groaning! I can't even say that bounty like this tempts me to overeat. This is partly because I just don't have the capacity anymore, after losing 30 pounds and three sizes. But, strangely, I find myself overwhelmed by an overabundance of food now, and it makes me eat less. It's like grocery shopping... one whole AISLE of cereal??? My eyes glaze over.

But what I'm really looking forward to is seeing my sister. It's been about four months and in that time, she's been working at losing weight. I was dumbfounded when she told me she's already lost 36 pounds! She was talking about how it doesn't make sense to run out and buy all new clothes when you're still heading downward. A light went on in my head! I ran to my closet and began pulling out all sorts of shirts and pants, chinos and jeans mostly, in the sizes I'd gone down through. I washed and ironed everything -- eight pairs of pants in all. I can't wait to give them to her! Oh, and a beautiful black dress with a scalloped hem trimmed in a red floral pattern. Sigh. I loved that dress.

I know you're supposed to empty your closet and get rid of the large sizes, so you're not tempted to go back there. But I just couldn't stand the waste! I'm way too frugal. I'm so glad these clothes will have another life. And I'm SURE it won't be long before my sister's handing them off to someone else. I am so proud of her!

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!)