March 07, 2010

Weighty Matters

Losing weight is no easy task; here’s how three people found their way way

Kathy Ursprung
The Chronicle

Cindy: Delivered

     Cindy MacLeod calls herself a former food addict. “Some people use drugs, alcohol and other stuff,” MacLeod said. “I used food.”
     Food and emotions were strongly connected for MacLeod. Happy, sad or mad, food was her antidote.
     “I hid food,” she said. “I’d go to the store and buy two or three candy bars and hide them away.”
     After busy days, she and her husband would go to a fast food restaurant and load up on burgers and fries.
     She had lost weight before. After the birth of her five children, she lost so much weight on a low-carb diet that her husband and mother-in-law worried she was getting too thin.
     “I was not a person who could eat normally,” she said, adding that she tended to choose “large portions and the wrong things.”
     By early 2008, MacLeod topped the scale at around 300 pounds.
     Then she went to a retreat with her church and women from Aglow, the women’s Christian organization.
     “We are worshipping and there are speakers and people are prophesying — and you know it’s from God, because they don’t know you,” she said.
     Up to that point, MacLeod had been frustrated in efforts to control her eating. She prayed over and over for help.
     “I kept praying to the Lord and said, ‘I can’t do this; I need You to help.’”
At the retreat, one of the people told MacLeod she would be delivered from everything that is not in moderation.
     “I started crying because I knew it was food,” she said.
     MacLeod went home with the feeling that God was on her side in her quest. She’d had some experience with that feeling before. She said she had been delivered from cigarettes.
     Even so, the big emotional and mental changes didn’t happen until about a year after her prophetic retreat.
     During that year, she lost about 25 or 30 pounds, but she still struggled. Then, one day, everything changed.
     “Instead of looking at food for emotional support, I would say I look at the portion I have on my plate and think, ‘Do you need that?’
     “People don’t realize the portions they actually are supposed to be surviving on.”
MacLeod believes obedience to God played a role in her delivery from food.
     “Being obedient in my walk with God,” she explained. “I’ve been called on to do some things in my life that I’ve done and God has blessed me like crazy.”
     In addition to changing the way she looked at food, her epiphany changed the way she looks at herself.
     “I was never happy with myself,” she said. “I talked myself down and treated myself … not good. I was my worst enemy.”
     Physically, MacLeod was not only unhappy with her appearance, but with the things she couldn’t do, cross her legs comfortably, for example, and still breath.
     Fat or thin, she said her husband was always supportive and loving.
     “My husband was always saying I was beautiful, so beautiful,” she said. “He loves me fat, skinny or whatever. But when you are heavy, you don’t feel that way.”
     Through the year after the retreat, she continued to pray to God for help. When it finally arrived, she said it was not gradual, but immediate.
     “I woke up the next morning and I was OK.
     “It’s not me; I know God is doing it. I still like food.”
     But instead of big portions, she’ll have just a bite if she feels she must indulge.
     Most days, she stays to about 1,400 calories, eating them in small meals six times a day, instead of depriving herself through the day and gorging on a big meal and evening snacks, as was her past practice.
     A big part of her diet is salads, she and her husband will go out from time to time and split an entrée. He would eat half and she would eat half of her half, and take the remaining quarter home for another meal.
     At home, she has help from her husband, a chef, in keeping healthful meals available.
     Since that date in May 2009 when she says she was delivered from food, MacLeod has lost 97 pounds, plus the 25 or 30 pounds she’d lost before. She’s gone from a size 22 to a size 10 and thinks she’s about 10 pounds from her goal.
     She didn’t know what size she was until she went to an estate sale and found some lovely upscale dresses from places like Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom. She took the size 10s home wondering if they would fit and they did.
     Since the retreat, MacLeod hasn’t purchased any new clothing to fit, except work pants. Instead, she buys second-hand clothing like her estate sale finds in the interim.
     But there’s one new dress sitting in the closet she hopes to fit soon.
     “I have a little black dress that I want to fit in,” she said. “It’s a size 8.”

Nick: Portion Control

     Nick DeLeon, 27, had battled weight issues since childhood.
     “In college I dropped a ton of weight, then I kind of just put it all back on,” he said. “It’s hard to keep active with a busy school schedule.”
     In July 2009, weighing 324 pounds, DeLeon began thinking it was time for a change. He decided to go on Nutrisystem and lost 136 pounds.
     “I’d been a borderline diabetic for the last three years,” said The Dalles Police reserve officer and classified ad salesman for The Chronicle. As a result of his weight, DeLeon suffered from sleeping problems, including sleep apnea, and was chronically fatigued. He tired easily just walking across the street.
     “I’d been a big guy in high school, but I was athletic,” he said. “I’d been living a sedentary life for years.”
     Working as a police reserve officer put DeLeon on display at big community events.
     “It’s nice to look good in my uniform and not be a laughing stock,” he said. “I would hear people talk.”
     In addition to the Nutrisystem program, which provides portion-controlled meals for its members and stresses integrating vegetables into snacks, DeLeon started
exercising again. On regular trips to the fitness center, he would use the treadmill or elliptical machine for 30 to 45 minutes.
     Down below his target weight, DeLeon is now in the process of weaning himself from the diet meals and says he has become comfortable with eating less.
     “I can go out to a restaurant and order and not overeat,” he said. “I try to stay away from fast food, unless it’s Subway, because it has some healthier stuff. I’m doing more cooking.”
     Before his weight loss, he said, “I used to go to fast food places and order all kinds of things. It cost a lot of money and it was not healthy.”
     Even when he occasionally slacks off the exercise, he says the work he’s done on diet and exercise is still keeping his body in check.
     Losing the weight has taken a lot of willpower, DeLeon said, particularly staying away from the sweets that routinely appear at the office.
     “It’s so hard,” he said. “It takes a lot of determination and willpower. But I don’t let things get me down. I stay positive.”
     He still gets cravings
     DeLeon credits his mother’s support for helping him succeed, as well as other family and friends.
     “My friends and family have definitely been my rocks,” he said. And now, they are proud of his success.
     DeLeon still has cravings from time to time and says he will sometimes give in, though he says he doesn’t slip much.
     “It’s OK as long as I remain active and don’t go overboard,” he said.
     The benefits from weight loss are more than better health and more regular sleep, DeLeon said.
     “There’s definitely a huge change in my energy level. I’m not tired all the time. It’s easier to be a little more social, a little more self-confident. It’s definitely a confidence-booster when you shed a ton of weight and are buying clothes you couldn’t wear before.”

Ada Marie: Longtime loser

     “People think about normal weight; I don’t have a normal weight,” Ada Marie Haake said. “It’s always been something of a battle.”
     It’s a battle Haake has been winning for the past 33 years with the help of KOPS, Keep Off Pounds Sensibly. That’s the branch of TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) that is just for people who maintain a longtime weight loss.
     Haake has kept a 60-pound loss off throughout that time.
     “I’ve always been heavy,” Haake said. “I was put on a couple of diets as a child and as a teen-ager.”
     Plenty potatoes and desserts played a big role in her diet growing up.
“Plus the fact that I came home after school, grabbed a snack, sat down and read,” she said. “I wasn’t a real active child.”
     Prior to her weight loss, Haake weighed 180 pounds. Haake had big weight losses on three separate occasions. The first, she admits, was something of a fluke.
     “I was in Georgia when I first got pregnant,” Haake said.
     She doesn’t know whether it was the climate or some other unknown factor, but she said she had trouble keeping meals down.
     “I would come back and finish my meal, but I wasn’t getting a full meal,” she said. “I had a lot of problems with upset stomach.”
     After she gave birth she was 20 pounds lighter than before.
     Sometime within the next 10 years, Haake gave up candy bars.
     “Instead of buying a candy bar each time I went to the store, I wouldn’t buy one,” she said, adding that she may have cut back in other areas, too. That helped carve another 20 pounds from her petite frame.
     When Haake and her family moved to The Dalles, she was still struggling with that last 20 pounds.
     “In 1971 I joined TOPS and took off 19¾ pounds,” Haake said.
TOPS is a weight management support group that has been in existence since 1948.      Its members follow an exchange system for meal planning, which helps control portions and maintain a balanced diet.
     “TOPS is a support group,” Haake said. “You have to do it yourself and they are there for you. Members send cards, call each other. You can call and ask for help if you feel like you need some.”
     Haake used to weigh and measure her food every day, but has become experienced enough that she doesn’t need to anymore.
     Haake’s biggest motivator? “Facing the scales every week,” she said. Even though she has maintained her weight loss for more than 30 years, Haake still attends a TOPS meeting every week.
     “That’s a must to me,” she said.
     Haake doesn’t call the way she eats a diet.
     “It’s eating sensibly,” she said. “I don’t like the word ‘diet.’ I try to eat sensibly every day so I don’t have a big gain.”
     At the same time, Haake doesn’t deprive herself.
     “If I go someplace and they’re having cake or pie, I can eat it,” she said. ‘I generally don’t eat the crust because it has a lot of oil I don’t need, but I’ll eat the filling. And I can’ have a small piece of birthday cake, but I try to leave the frosting alone.”
     On normal days, the Haakes have fruit for dessert.
     Bone loss has caused Haake to lose some height, with resulting pressure on her lungs that makes aerobic exercise more difficult. But she still tries to get out and walk three times a week. Helping her accomplish that goal are a pair walking sticks given to her by her sons.