Losing Pain and 60 Pounds

Congrats to Teri who lost sixty pounds seven years ago and has maintained this weight loss since then. 

She says she used to be a yo-yo dieter all her life and had tried many diets. 

"I had a stressful career, and my position required excessive travel.  I was home on average of three days a month, and mostly I wined and dined for a living (sounds tough, doesn't it?).  When the weight creeps on at five pounds a year, it doesn't seem so bad.  At least not until the 10th year.....

My life as I knew it came to a halt when a suicidal deer ran into the side of my car in November 2004.  I had severe neck and back injuries, and spent the next four months in either my bed or a hospital bed.  Between the myriad of medications and the desire for only "odorless, silent comfort food", that catered pity-party was good for another 10-20 pounds.

When I was finally out of bed, I had the restriction of only being allowed to drive one mile round trip. There was a Weight Watchers meeting 1/4 mile from my house. The Saturday morning I went, I sat in the parking lot and watched the people go into the Church, and watched them come out. I didn't get out of the car. The next week, I went in and joined. That was in April of 2005.

I'd love to say my journey was effortless, without a speed bump or detour, but not true. The first eight months were great - I think I had a loss most every week, and in nine months I had lost 45 pounds. Then I hit a plateau (or was it a mesa), and I did the +.2, -.2 shuffle for the next 3 months.  

As frustrating as that was, I kept trying to remind myself that this was the way I was going to be eating for the rest of my life, and chose to view it as "premature maintenance".  The real issue was that I was unable to exercise (I was barely able to move).  

My doctor sent me for Aquatic Physical Therapy, which over time evolved into water-walking, then water aerobics.  I talk about it in Let's Get Physical.  Once I started to exercise, I didn't lose that much more weight, but I lost three sizes!  As I've been known to say to my members, "items in the overhead shift during flight", and I was thrilled to put some of my "items" back where they belonged.

I hit my goal in June of 2006 and Lifetime in August. I was ecstatic. I was a different person. I was in a lot less pain (and I attribute that to not carrying the weight equivalent of a 7-year-old on my back and neck every day).  What I didn't know then was that I had not only lost 60 pounds, but I would be looking back seven years later and not have found it again."

Thanks much to Teri for this very inspiring story! She has since become a Weight Watchers leader and finds it the most rewarding job she's ever had. See her blog at Weight Weight Don't Tell Me.