Losing Pain and 60 Pounds

Congrats to Teri who lost sixty pounds seven years ago and has maintained this weight loss since then. 

She says she used to be a yo-yo dieter all her life and had tried many diets. 

"I had a stressful career, and my position required excessive travel.  I was home on average of three days a month, and mostly I wined and dined for a living (sounds tough, doesn't it?).  When the weight creeps on at five pounds a year, it doesn't seem so bad.  At least not until the 10th year.....

My life as I knew it came to a halt when a suicidal deer ran into the side of my car in November 2004.  I had severe neck and back injuries, and spent the next four months in either my bed or a hospital bed.  Between the myriad of medications and the desire for only "odorless, silent comfort food", that catered pity-party was good for another 10-20 pounds.

When I was finally out of bed, I had the restriction of only being allowed to drive one mile round trip. There was a Weight Watchers meeting 1/4 mile from my house. The Saturday morning I went, I sat in the parking lot and watched the people go into the Church, and watched them come out. I didn't get out of the car. The next week, I went in and joined. That was in April of 2005.

I'd love to say my journey was effortless, without a speed bump or detour, but not true. The first eight months were great - I think I had a loss most every week, and in nine months I had lost 45 pounds. Then I hit a plateau (or was it a mesa), and I did the +.2, -.2 shuffle for the next 3 months.  

As frustrating as that was, I kept trying to remind myself that this was the way I was going to be eating for the rest of my life, and chose to view it as "premature maintenance".  The real issue was that I was unable to exercise (I was barely able to move).  

My doctor sent me for Aquatic Physical Therapy, which over time evolved into water-walking, then water aerobics.  I talk about it in Let's Get Physical.  Once I started to exercise, I didn't lose that much more weight, but I lost three sizes!  As I've been known to say to my members, "items in the overhead shift during flight", and I was thrilled to put some of my "items" back where they belonged.

I hit my goal in June of 2006 and Lifetime in August. I was ecstatic. I was a different person. I was in a lot less pain (and I attribute that to not carrying the weight equivalent of a 7-year-old on my back and neck every day).  What I didn't know then was that I had not only lost 60 pounds, but I would be looking back seven years later and not have found it again."

Thanks much to Teri for this very inspiring story! She has since become a Weight Watchers leader and finds it the most rewarding job she's ever had. See her blog at Weight Weight Don't Tell Me. 

Losing Weight with Weight Watchers

After Heather gave birth to her first child about five years ago, she weighed 313 pounds. Since then she has gone on to have two more children but has lost 170 pounds! She's done this with the help of Weight Watchers and regular exercise.

Heather has a very inspirational blog at Half Size Me and she also interviews people about their weight loss stories in a regular podcast series. Check it out!

From Size 30 to Size 4

Lynne used to wear a size 30 or even 32. She now wears sizes 4 and 6. She weighed 296 pounds in January 2005 and got down to her goal weight of 129 pounds by March 2007. She is 5'5" tall.

Her first step was to join a Weight Watchers online group. Months later she started walking one mile a day around a track. Now she's a vegetarian and works out five days a week.

About exercise she says;

The best part about exercise when I started is that my weight-loss went into high gear. I started posting 2+-pound losses almost every week for the first six weeks. Even after that, my losses were usually in the 1- to 2-pound range. Because of exercise, I have a flat stomach (even though I have some loose skin), strong arms, toned legs, and a buttload of energy every day.

She also has an online support group on her blog for other people who'd like to lose weight and are seeking online support and friendship.

It's hard to believe she's a grandmother. See more amazing before and after photos at her site.

'Men Only' Weight Loss Support

The New York Times had an article a few days ago about how men's weight loss efforts differ from women. They said that at Weight Watchers meetings, the women get emotional but the men don't. They interviewed a few men who attend male-only weight loss meetings. One guy says; �Without the women there you don�t have to be as masculine because we�re all in the same boat. We don�t have to show off for anyone. We can all be ourselves.�

See more at It takes a Big Man to Seek Help on Weight Loss.

Tim Loses 87 Pounds

Tim has lost 87 pounds. This was a tremendous feat for him but it only took him eight months. He lost the weight via regular walking, then also swimming as well as adhering to the Weight Watchers program.

Tim is 37 years old and at his heaviest he weighed 262 pounds. He is 5'10" tall and now weighs 174 pounds. See his weight loss story at CNN.

Sarah Ferguson Used to Weigh 200 Pounds

Sarah Ferguson is now 47 years old. She is celebrating ten years as spokesperson for Weight Watchers. When she joined the Weight Watchers program in 1997 she was about '200 pound odd'. Weight Watchers has reportedly paid her millions of dollars per year since then. Ferguson says they saved her life. She first became fat at the age of 12 after her mother left the family.

Ferguson says that not only does she watch what she eats, she also does some exercise daily be it pilates, yoga, jogging or lifting weights.

She says "It's very, very difficult to keep focused and motivated. You have to learn to control the darkness in your mind. And you have to be honest with yourself about what your triggers [to overeat] are. Because if you don't, you'll choose food instead of anything else."

How Jenny McCarthy Lost 60 Pounds

Jenny McCarthy gained a lot of weight when she was pregnant with her only child back in 2002. Soon after she gave birth she needed to lose 60 pounds. She tried some fad diets for a while but this didn't work. She then took the advice of her mom and joined Weight Watchers. It took her just over six months to lose sixty pounds.

Weight Watchers approached her some time ago to be a spokesperson for them. She went ahead and signed a contract last year and now we're seeing the first commercials on TV, as in the video clip below.



McCarthy was born in 1972 and was thirty years old when her baby was born almost five years ago. She divorced her husband before her son was three years old.

McCarthy rose to fame when she became Playboy playmate of the year in 1994. She's been an actress since then. Her celebrity star status shot up a year ago when she started dating Jim Carrey.

Is this the first time Weight Watchers has chosen a Playboy centerfold to be their spokesperson? It's definitely a change of marketing campaigns for them, as they typically feature unknown housewives in their advertisements. It's likely they've noticed the extreme success of the Jenny Craig Kirstie Alley campaign and have decided to try the celebrity endorsement route in their new campaigns.

Update: Whoa... here we have a completely different view of Jenny McCarthy talking about weight loss. A reader found this video clip and she sums it up succinctly;

I wonder if the "sweet mom" in this Weight Watchers commercial is the same Jenny McCarthy that appears in this video calling people "fatso's" and saying sex with a fat person "is like having sex with a butch lesbian."

Given that video, her Weight Watchers commercial loses all credibility. They're trying to make into a wholesome, understand mom who struggles like the common woman, but in reality, she has the compassion of a thumb tack.

A Weight Watchers Success Story: Anita

Anita is one person who experienced extreme weight loss success with the help of Weight Watchers. Just before giving birth to her first child she weighed 397 pounds. In the two photos here, she weighs 328 pounds in the before photo. Her height is 5'9". In the after photo she weighs about 180 pounds.

Her weight loss motivation started in earnest after she flew on an airplane and felt humiliated for needing a seat belt extension. She joined Weight Watchers (not for the first time) and managed to get to her goal weight in two years and three months as well as having a second baby during this time.

See more before and after photos as well as the full story here.