Making Her Health a Priority

Bob Greene's Total Body Makeover
by Bob Greene

(Page 6 of 10)

Shawn's Story

Many women continue to carry some "baby weight" after they have a child. Multiply it by five — I am the mother of five children, ages 3 to 14 — and you can see my predicament. After giving birth to my last child, I found that I weighed 421 pounds.

It may sound surprising, but I had never tried diets or exercise before. Three years ago, though, I was rummaging through a used-book sale and I came upon Bob and Oprah's book Make the Connection. I found that the book spoke to me. I looked through it and thought to myself, "I could really do this."

The book stresses that you really have to have a plan and that you should chart your food and water intake as well as everything about your exercise. Keeping a journal is something I still do today. At the end of the week, I look over what I've done and think about what I could have done better. I might, for instance, see that I ate a bran muffin for breakfast, which sounded healthy at the time but, upon reflection, I know deep down has too many calories. Next week, the bran muffin will be out.

So far, I have lost 140 pounds and while I'm not at my goal weight yet, I am continuing to work toward it. And my life has changed drastically. I have so much more energy, am a much more active person, and am eating much more healthfully — as is everyone else in my family.

One of the best steps I took was to follow Bob's advice to have an eating cutoff time three hours before bedtime. The first month that I started the program, I didn't really see any weight loss, but as soon as I instituted that rule, I lost three pounds. That's probably because I was a big-time night eater. I would get up at three in the morning and eat a big bowl of Lucky Charms or Sugar Pops with full-fat milk. Now I'm rarely hungry enough to eat after my cutoff time, and when I am I know it's because I haven't eaten well during the day.

Changing my eating habits was a gradual process because not only did I have to alter my habits, I had to wean my kids off some of the foods we typically had in the house. So I did things like replace Froot Loops with Cheerios, and once the kids got used to it, they were perfectly happy. I stopped buying potato chips and started sneaking healthy foods like brown rice and beans into casseroles. I bought everyone in the household his and her own water bottle. I found that if there are no other options, they'll eat and drink what's there. If they put up a fuss, I just tell them, "This is for my health."

I began the exercise part of my program by walking. At first it was all I was able to do. Once I got up to speed, I joined a gym, and now I do a variety of different cardiovascular exercises. I work out on the elliptical trainer, ride the stationary bike, and walk on the treadmill. Once I started weight training, more inches came off. My weight actually went up a little, but I came down in body fat. I now go to the gym six days a week and strength train two to three times weekly.

When you have five children, it's not easy to fit in exercise, but I made it a priority. I decided that I was going to give myself permission to put myself first, because at the end of the day I'm able to do a lot more for other people when I'm also doing something for myself. So even when I was working, I made sure that I had some time to exercise. I schedule the kids' activities around the time I go to the gym or walk. I tell them, "This is the time I have available to take you places," and it seems to work out. They often walk with me, although they could keep up with me better in the beginning. Now that I walk faster, it's a little harder for them.

My being active has benefited my children. Now I have the energy to stay up in the evenings and watch the boys play basketball. We hike and backpack, and I play with the kids at the playground. Once I was on the swing, and a woman came up and asked me if I wasn't embarrassed to be on the swing because I was so heavy. Another time I was Rollerblading, and some people worried about what they would do if I fell. Would they have to pick me up? Despite the hurtful things that people say, I decided I was not going to just sit on a park bench and watch my children. My daughter jogs and one day I'd like to be able to run with her and to help my boys with soccer.

I want to be part of my kids' lives. I want my children to learn to be healthy and to question what's in the things they're eating. I do things like instead of ordering a take-out pizza, I make my own with whole wheat crust, lots of veggies, and lean Canadian bacon on top. My kids love it and have learned that healthy food can taste good, too.

One of the hard things about losing weight when you have a lot to lose is that people might not notice it at first. I lost about 70 pounds before people started noticing. And even if the numbers on the scale are dropping, they never feel like they're going low enough. So I had to learn to look for other ways to measure my success. One of them was my dress size. When I was a size 32 dress, I bought a 24, and now wear that dress. I'm going to buy myself a size 16 bathing suit this year in anticipation of where I'll be next summer. I also measure myself, because inches lost tell part of the story too. I still weigh myself, but only about once a month.

I have found that the more I stick to my program, the more committed I become. But before you become committed, I think you have to find a reason for doing what you're going to do. My reason was and still is simple: I want to be a good mom to my kids!

Losing weight has changed my life in ways that I would never have imagined. For example, people are starting to ask me how I've lost weight, and I tell them my story, which has helped me to make new friends — being so heavy had tended to make me shy away from people in the past. I also never used to go to the movies because I couldn't fit into the seat, but recently I went with my kids. It was the first time in their lives that we all went to the movies as a family. All along they thought I was crying because of the movie, but I was really crying because I realized that I am now able to do "normal things" like sitting in a booth at a restaurant as well.

I think my relationship with my husband has also improved. I notice that I don't put myself down and that I accept the blame when things aren't going right. I have also accepted the fact that I have made some bad choices, not just in the foods I used to buy but in the way I spent money and paid the bills. I had bad habits when it came to those things, and now I budget our money and have learned to spend wisely. I used to buy things to comfort myself and to make myself feel better — things like lotions and body sprays and perfumes. But now I am confident enough to say I am worth it. I am worth being happy, and I don't need those things to make me happy. Just by living my life I am happy, and by being productive I am making a difference in my life and in the lives of my children. Most people think that loving yourself is a given, but I never did. I see that I had no self-love because I wouldn't take care of myself. Now, though, I'm learning to love and accept myself with all my assets and all my flaws as well.

Enabling Saboteurs: Do you let other people prevent you from succeeding?

You just read about how family and other people close to you can sometimes interfere with the process of change. Sometimes, the problem is not so much that you're laying the blame on other people but that you are allowing other people to dictate the choices you make. Often people sabotage those they love. It may be, for instance, that you have a significant other who is not only unsupportive of your goals but who actively tries to interfere with them by making derogatory remarks, refusing to alter his or her schedule to help you make time for exercise, acting hurt or angry if you want him or her to change the type of food they make for you, even "not letting" you do things such as joining a gym or participating in a walking group. These are just some of things saboteurs do, sometimes unconsciously, although sometimes with full awareness.

And why, subconsciously or not, do they do it at all? Sometimes it can be jealousy — they don't want you to become more attractive to other people, or if they lack willpower of their own, they're envious of your determination. Some people feel threatened by having someone close to them change because it forces them to look at their own situation and challenges them to do something about it. Some people are just used to exercising control over what their significant other does and doesn't do. Generally, what drives all of these things is fear: they are afraid of being left behind. You are improving yourself, which may cause them either to fear that you will elevate yourself right out of their sphere of influence or to fear that you will become "better" than they are because they haven't also done what they need to do to change.

Look at your own situation and think about it. Do you feel anxious when trying to cut calories or increase your exercise because you know that you're going to hear some smart remarks from — or even experience the anger of — your friends or family? Do friends or other people close to you try to entice you to eat foods that are fattening or to skip your workouts and go out to dinner instead? Do they tell stories about others who have tried to make healthful changes and failed? Open up your ears and eyes to see what's really going on.

You don't live alone in a cave; I know your family and social relationships are very important to you. But you have to take a look at those relationships for what they are. If someone is not being supportive of you or is actually trying to sabotage your efforts to lose weight and improve your health, that relationship needs to change. The best-case scenario is to get that person on board not only to support and encourage you to but to join you in getting healthy. You may find however, that you will have to reevaluate that relationship. Here's a story that illustrates the best-case scenario.

Copyright © 2005 by Bob Greene Enterprises, Inc.

About the Author

Bob Greene is an exercise physiologist and certified personal trainer specializing in fitness, metabolism, and weight loss. He has been a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He is also a contributing writer and editor for O, The Oprah Magazine, and writes on health and fitness for Oprah.com. Greene is the bestselling author of Get With the Program!, The Get With the Program! Guide to Good Eating, The Get With the Program! Daily Journal, and The Get With the Program! Guide to Fast Food and Family Restaurants.