Jen is no stranger to weight loss…or weight gain. For over 25 years, she’s been trying to lose weight and keep it off. “My mom put me on my first real ‘diet’ in the eighth grade, but I knew I had a weight problem even before that. Looking back at the pictures from elementary school, I’m actually surprised no one tried to help me lose weight sooner.”
She lost about 20 pounds during this first attempt, and managed to keep it off for around a year before a growth spurt and a move from their home in Europe, back to the United States, in 1991 reversed that trend. “The combination of naturally gaining some weight due to normal teen causes, and the reintroduction of fast and junk food that I hadn’t eaten for almost five years really did a number on me, she says.” I went from about 117 pounds to 140 in that one summer, alone.
Unfortunately, a steady diet of French fries and Nutty Bars in the high school cafeteria didn’t help this cause, and by the time she graduated in 1994, Jen weighed around 160 pounds.
“I started college with the best of intentions,” she says, “but found myself eating very large amounts of food I normally wouldn’t have given a second thought.” Cookies and ice cream at lunch and dinner, along with very little fresh produce, a serious case of home sickness, and late-night study sessions (which often involved a call to Papa Johns) just worsened the situation. “Most folks joke about gaining the ‘Freshman 15,’ she says, but I put on something closer to the ‘Freshman 20.’” And it only got worse. By the time she graduated from college in 1994, Jen weighed in at 194 pounds, and found herself engaged in frequent binge eating behavior. “I can’t explain it,” says Jen. “I would just find myself alone in my dorm room, eating everything in sight. It was always in secret, because I was so embarrassed by my behavior. And no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get it under control.” Donuts, crackers, candy, and cookies…the weight gain continued.
It wasn’t until Jen was out of college for about of year, and her weight reached an all-time high of 218 that she felt she had to do something. She obtained a prescription for the weight loss drug, Meridia. “It worked like a miracle for me,” says Jen, “but I was constantly worried about developing high blood pressure or some other side effect.” Eventually, after losing about 25 pounds, Jen stopped taking the drug, returned to her old habits, and began to regain the weight.
In 2003, shortly after the South Beach Diet was first published, Jen was encouraged by her parents to go on the diet with them. Her mother, who has never had a huge weight problem, wanted to drop a few pounds, and her father, who suffers from many of the same issues Jen does, wanted to drop close to 100. Together they embarked on this new plan, which proved hugely successful for them all. “I lost a solid 40-plus pounds,” says Jen, “and for the first time in my life, I really felt great. I was enjoying my exercise regimen more, and had no trouble following the plan to a ‘T.’”
In the summer of 2004, however, Jen moved from the city that she’d called home for 10 years, and found herself relying on more fast and processed foods out of convenience. “At first the effects were very minimal,” she says. But then, the more I started meeting people and going out for drinks, meals, etc. the more I started to fall back into my old habits.” Steadily, the weight crept back on from 180 to 190…200…210….
When she and her fiancé got engaged in 2005 she’d topped out at 218 again. “I still can’t bring myself to look at the pictures from that night,” she says. They’re in a box somewhere in my attic, which is a pretty sad statement. What should have been one of the happiest moments of my life wasn’t because I felt too fat.”
Desperate to lose the same 40 pounds again, Jen consulted a doctor about doing a Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF) before her wedding. “It had worked for a friend,” she says, “and I was pretty sure it would work for me.” The plan did work…for a while. “I lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 pounds before I just couldn’t bring myself to follow the plan any more. Yes, I wanted to be thinner, but I also wanted to enjoy my life, too. A diet full of nothing but lean meat and half-cup servings of vegetables just wasn’t cutting it. I wanted to enjoy a plate of broccoli or a piece of fruit on my terms.” She continued to work out for an hour and a half a day and counted calories diligently until her wedding in September 2006. The result was an additional 20 pound loss.
“But it didn’t last long,” Jen says. “The minute we flew out for our honeymoon, all bets were off. I put on 15 pounds in just those two weeks alone. And, sadly, one of the things I remember most about our honeymoon was the horrible, bloated, over-full feeling I had most of the time we were there.” Jen’s weight did hold fairly steady for a while, but then it slowly began to creep back up. “We were eating out regularly; I’d stopped getting up early every morning to work out. It was just a recipe for disaster.” Jen settled in around 215 and then real disaster struck.
In February 2009, Jen’s mom was admitted to the hospital with what turned out to be life threatening complications from a ruptured bowel. She’d go on to spend six weeks in the hospital, and endure a total of three procedures before finally being deemed healthy enough to go home. “What happened to me and my dad is what happens to so many caretakers,” says Jen. “We stopped taking care of ourselves so we could take care of her. We were eating fast food two, maybe three times a day; drinking all of those flavored coffee drinks, and eating things like cereal and toast for dinner so we didn’t have to cook. We were also constantly exhausted. We’d get up at 5:30 a.m. and spend from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. each night at the hospital before coming home, falling into bed and starting all over again.” Jen’s weight, and her dad’s, continued rise. “By the time Mom was well enough for me to go home,” Jen says, “I was at a new all-time high of 224 pounds.”
At home, she worked hard to get back on track, improving her diet and exercising again. She’d seen the effects of both good health and bad first-hand, and knew she needed to do something. She and her husband took a much-needed vacation together, walking around and exploring Europe for hours on end. Near the end of their trip, however, Jen started experiencing severe pain in both of her feet. “I’ve never felt anything like it,” she says. “It was this intense, burning pain that felt like it would never stop and literally brought me to tears.” That pain turned out to be plantar fasciitis.
The plantar fasciitis eventually became so crippling that Jen couldn’t even stand in the kitchen long enough to prepare a meal. In August 2009 she sought the help of a podiatrist who began a course of treatment that would eventually heal her feet and return her to a more normal state of affairs. But as her hopes for a recovery rose, so, too, did her weight. “I couldn’t walk or do any kind of physical activity,” Jen says. “So eating became the only thing I could do, and even when I was careful about my intake, the scale just continued to go up. I couldn’t believe the numbers I was seeing. They were in the 230s…a place I swore I’d never go.”
One day, in October 2009, Jen stumbled across Dr. Berkeley’s name on a website she frequented. “What appealed to me was Dr. Berkeley’s use of lower carbohydrate weight loss techniques. I knew that the closest thing I’d ever seen to success was my time on the South Beach diet,” she says. “And, by now, I’d realized that I couldn’t do this alone. I was tired of finding myself in the throes of a binge; of feeling helpless, fat and unhealthy. Every other aspect of my life was great. I had a wonderful family and home life, great friends, and a good job. I was a well-rounded person who was generally happy with life. But this had held me back for too long, and after developing the plantar fasciitis, which was no doubt related to the extra pounds I was hauling around, I decided that I had to do something about it.”
On October 22, 2009, weighing 236 pounds, Jen began working with Dr. Berkeley and her staff, and she hasn’t looked back. “Thanks to their support and the incredible understanding I’ve gained of my own body and how certain food substances affect it, I’ve lost just shy of 80 pounds.” Now 157 pounds, Jen is working to maintain what she’s lost so far, and still hopes to lose a little more. “Another 15 to 20 pounds would be great,” she says, “but I know now that this is a process I only have so much control over. My biggest goal is to keep everything I’ve lost off, and to sustain this new lifestyle from here on out.”
“One of the most important things to me,” says Jen “is that what I’m doing isn’t just some fad or crash diet plan. It’s a way of life that has allowed me to incorporate the things I really believe in, such as organic, local and sustainable agriculture, and eating a whole foods diet. It’s also helped me to see that the struggles I’ve had with overeating and binge eating for so many years aren’t my fault. They’re not due to a lack of will power or some emotional weakness, but rather are a direct result of a biochemical response my body has to addictive substances in the Standard American Diet, such as sugars and starches. I hope that my participation in Dr. Berkeley’s maintainers group and in this blog helps someone else who may be struggling with similar issues. I want them to know that they’re not alone and that, with some effort, there is a way out.”
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