August 24, 2009

Weight Loss Before and After Stories of Success

What happens after you become determined to lose weight and successfully do it? Weight loss before and after stories of success are common. When you lose a significant amount of weight, your life can change in many pleasant ways. Here are some of my favorite stories.

Margie had gained 30 pounds after her second pregnancy. She was sluggish – and not just because she had to keep up with a baby and a toddler. She felt that her weight was keeping her from being the mother she wanted to be.

So Margie went to a dietitian to help her change her food choices. One of the things her dietitian suggested she eat was a variety of whole foods that were low in fat and high in fiber. Margie had been making a variety of quick meals and picking up fast food because of her duties as a mom.

She decided that it was important to start cooking wholesome meals for her family. She started losing one, maybe to two pounds a week. Within 4 months, she was back to her pre-pregnancy weight.

Another factor that was important in her weight loss was wanting to create a family of healthy eaters. She didn’t want her kids to think that food came from McDonalds. Fast food should be an occasional treat not a mainstay of their diets.

Margie’s weight loss success story is an inspiration to all new moms struggling to lose the baby weight. It can be done!

~~~~~
Rob is another of my favorite weight loss before and after stories of success. He is a teacher at an exclusive public school. One of the perks of teaching at the school is that it provides a catered lunch each day. In addition, fellow teachers often brought specialty foods to share at lunchtime.

The camaraderie in the lunchroom was one of the strengths of the school program, but it was killing Rob’s waistline. He decided that he would bring a low calorie sack lunch and begin walking during 20 minutes of his lunch break. He worried that skipping the lunchroom would mean he would distance himself from his fellow teachers.

But, when they saw that he was losing a significant amount of weight on his program, many of the other teachers joined in. Soon, there was a teacher’s walking club at lunch time. A social scene based around an unhealthy eating pattern was replaced by a healthy one.

~~~~~
Kerry was a busy mom and she also put in 50+ hours a week at her job. When she wasn’t working, she wanted to spend time with her two boys, ages 9 and 11. She felt guilty about going to the gym because that was an hour and a half she should have spent with her kids.

But as she crept up near 200 pounds, she knew something had to change. One thing she did was get up a half hour earlier in the morning to take a walk. Then, when she got home in the evenings, she made a point of playing 20 minutes of basketball with the boys every day. Her new physical activity combined with a low fat, lower calorie diet, led to her losing 55 pounds over the course of a year.

Being able to increase the time she spent with her kids as well as losing the weight was a win-win for Kerry. That’s a truly great weight loss before & after story.

Do you have your own weight loss before and after story? I hope you were inspired by these and you're on your way to creating your own. When you have one, be sure to share it with others to encourage them to lose weight as well.

No comments: