Enough with celebrities in bikinis boasting about their weight loss (thanks to trainers and personal chefs and paydays dependent on looking good)! I prefer the story of a real Southern woman making it happen through hard work, willpower, and smart advice from the pros at Cooper Wellness Clinic in Dallas.
Meet Peg Williams.
Peg was a member of my class at Cooper Wellness Program last June. (I wrote about the program for our January 2009 issue. )The Austin resident had recently turned 50 and weighed 275 pounds. As senior vice-president of research and development for a computer company, Peg spends most of her days traveling. The challenges of staying healthy while on the road were formidable. The road was winning. “I finally got to the point where my fat clothes were tight. I knew I needed to do something. I just had to get it drilled into my head that this was about my health,” Peg said. “I saw myself in this high risk category, facing all kinds of health problems.”
Her initial physical exam at Cooper revealed high blood pressure, diabetes, and joint pain.
Peg spent a week at Cooper and left with a plan and a new attitude. “No excuses. I’m on the road at least 20 days a month and I have 1,000 excuses. I just said to myself, ‘This is good for you, good for your health. You have to do it.’”
A Cooper dietitian gave Peg a plan for eating 1,200 to 1,400 calories a day. A trainer told her to do at least 200 minutes of aerobic exercise a week. Peg began with daily 30-minute walks and built up to 60 minutes a day. She bought all the seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, a show she’d never watched before, on DVD and watched an episode each time she walked on the treadmill.
At restaurants, Peg became the self-proclaimed “Queen of Special Ordering.” “I tell the server that ‘I’m creative so you’re going to have to bear with me.’”
This June, Peg went back to Cooper for another week. She was different this time, a positive change that had her physician dancing in the halls.
“I had lost about 115 pounds. In the fitness ranking, I was in the superior category. Instead of being a size 26, I’m a size 12. The most rewarding thing for me was that, when I went last year I was 5 for 5 in risk factors for metabolic syndrome. Now I’m 0 for 5. They’re all gone!”
Peg says in the past she would lose weight but her goal was always to go back to eating the way she did before. This time she made the lifestyle change that is essential for good health.
“There is no time in my life when I can sit down with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every night. Ben & Jerry and I were good friends but we’ve parted company now. I don’t mind it. I eat completely differently and I’m happy with it.”
Here’s a short list of changes Peg made the past year:
Here’s to a long and healthy life, Peg! Congratulations on your success!
Related Links
Southern Blogging Mamas: MamaLaw (Three sassy D.C. moms who went to Cooper Clinic to assess their own risk factors)
