Posted July 10, 2010
It is a familiar warning for obese patients: eat better, exercise. It is not as easy at it sounds, but is a journey Montgomery resident Laura Hamlin took seriously as she pushed 300 pounds.
That weight on her 5-foot-4-inch frame was tough on everything, and before turning to a more sensible diet, she tried every lose-weight-quick scheme available — even a “beets” diet. She hates beets. Still does.
“I was about to turn 40 years old … and I had been diagnosed with sleep apnea, high blood pressure and borderline diabetes.”
That was in July of 2009. Since that time — as of last month — she had lost 74 pounds and five dress sizes.
Hamlin faced what one advisory committee singled out as the single greatest threat to public health in this century: obesity.
The new Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report recognizes that what is most needed is an unprecedented effort to help people follow the Dietary Guidelines, including changes in policy and the food environment, said Margo G. Wootan, director of CSPI Nutrition Policy.
The committee urges Americans to slash calories and increase their physical activity.
Alabama should take heed — it ranked as the second fattest state in the nation.
Again.
The ranking comes from the seventh annual “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010.” All seven years have found Alabama in the top three. Another study released last Wednesday, this one by America’s Trust for Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, also listed Alabama as second in the country.
The advisory committee for the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans calls on people to cut back on added sugars and solid fats (butter, marbled meats) and to follow a more nutrient-rich, plant-based diet.
It is a common sense approach — and it is exactly what Hamlin of Montgomery did.
Hamlin, who readily admits that she has a sweet tooth, cut it all out: the sweets, the fat and the lack of exercise.
“I can honestly say that losing weight is the best thing I could have ever done,” Hamlin said. “I have more energy, I have a better attitude, and I have a better outlook on life now.
“I’m so much happier now than I ever was waiting in a fast food drive-through.”
Since 2004, Alabama has been ranked as one of the top three fattest states. In 2009, the state also was ranked second in adult obesity in the nation, at 31.2 percent, according to the report by America’s Trust Health. This year, Alabama stood at 31.6 percent.
By now, even making No. 4 on the list would be progress — but it will take a lot of dedication and follow through.
The National Weight Control Registry (www.nwcr.ws/) follows people who have lost weight and kept it off. And it offers three main suggestions that should be followed, said Miriam Gaines, Alabama’s nutrition and physical activity director for the state health department.
The first is to eat more produce — fruits and vegetables.
“It’s not fried green tomatoes and apple pie,” she said. “You see the emphasis on less processed foods and more clean food. It can be frozen or canned, but without the sauces and gravy.”
Second, eat breakfast — and make sure it contains some kind of low-fat milk.
“Have that healthy breakfast anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour after waking up,” Gaines said. “That gets your metabolism cranked up, and … it appears that when you eat breakfast, you have a better intake throughout the whole day.”
Physical activity is third. It alone will not make someone lose weight, though.
“Studies over and over show that it is going to take both, but the physical activity will help you keep that weight off,” Gaines said.
“As a dietitian, I’m going to tell you to be very careful about the calories going in because some get stored as fat very easily such as the processed sugars. It’s very easy for us to store our fats.”
Basic nutrition advice hasn’t changed much during the 30 years that the dietary guidelines have been published. What has changed is that it is harder and harder to eat well, Wootan stated.
“For Americans today, healthy eating is like swimming upstream. It’s not that you can’t do it, it’s just it’s so hard,” she said. “Without changing the food environment, people don’t stand a chance of following the advice in the dietary guidelines.”
Wootan outlined three steps to lower caloric intake: Cut portions, eat less when dining out and drink fewer sugary beverages.
Keep reading to find out how four River Region residents lost the weight — and are keeping it off:
Chad Boak
Chad Boak is 26, and for years ate 7,000 calories every day.
His wife, Christy Boak, was working as a hospice nurse and saw a patient dying of diabetes. She knew her husband didn’t want to talk about his weight — 320 pounds — and she knew he didn’t want to hear the story of what would happen to him, “but that it wouldn’t be a long story.”
Chad Boak had a lot of pains: trouble breathing, acid reflux, asthma. He would lay in bed at night and think he was having a heart attack. He didn’t want to get tested for anything because he didn’t want to know the results.
“I was always at the very least, chunky,” he said. “I was not morbidly obese until I was 18 or 19 years old, and out of the house. I started making money and started eating out.”
Often lunch included a variety of junk food: chicken wings, cheesy fries, Mountain Dew, a couple calzones, cheesy bread. Or two BK double-stackers, medium fries, cheesy tater tots and a large Coke. There was no Diet Coke on the menu.
“I was going to die young,” he said.
His lifestyle change consists of planning meals before heading to the grocery store. He eats a lot of vegetables and grills food. He cut his daily caloric intake to 1,500 calories.
“I was advised to not go beyond that,” he said.
Prayers helped, said the associate minister for communications at Vaughn Forest Church. So did encouragement.
Boak has dropped down to 155 pounds through diet and exercise. He has found a new love for running. He ran a 5K race this year in 24 minutes — 36 minutes faster than he walked it two years prior.
“I go to the gym every day, except for Sunday — that’s my rest day,” he said. “After a while, the self-discipline is second nature. My wife got pregnant and we have a 1-year-old now. And she’ll never know me as that fat daddy.”
“It was an interesting journey.”
Nita Wilson
Nita Wilson was told by her doctor that if she dropped about 50 pounds, she could come off her blood pressure medication. Weighing 198 pounds and standing 5 feet 6 inches tall, Wilson wore size 14 clothes.
She knew what she had to do — she had a trainer for years and knew the benefits of healthy eating and exercise. And Wilson — an administrative assistant with the city’s director of planning — has a sweet tooth, too.
But for the past year, she has watched her food intake and has walked three miles, five days every week. She also has taken part in Montgomery Adventure Boot Camp, and has lost 11 percent body fat — and 6 dress sizes. Wilson is down to a size 8, and weighs 168 pounds.
There is more of an energy when she exercises — and she does not have the aches and pains. She describes a “depression” a lot of athletes describe when they don’t get to work out. Wilson has come to love the endorphins.
“I got frustrated, because you really don’t see a difference for about four months,” she said. “But when I started — oh, my goodness. Literally, about every 10 pounds or so that I lost, I went down a dress size.
“Now I have no clothes for next year.”
Lynn Owens
Lynn Owens is not where she wants to be — not even with the 70-pound weight loss.
The now-207-pound woman from Hope Hull plans to lose about 30 more pounds and then maintain her weight on her 5-foot-5-inch body.
“A doctor never mentioned my weight to me,” Owens, 65, said. “Ever.”
Everything that she says goes with being overweight — asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol — is what she battled to let go of.
“I have a pool, and try to swim three times a week,” she said. “I just swim until I can’t swim any more — maybe 15 to 20 minutes. When you swim, you use every muscle you have, just about.”
A yo-yo dieter for almost three decades — since her second child was born — Owens never lost the weight she wanted. And after a while, it just gradually piled on.
“I was getting close to 300 pounds, and thought to myself that if I ever get there, it might be the beginning of the end for me,” said Owens, who works in the state’s finance department part-time after working for the state full-time for 40 years.
So the grandmother of four and great-grandmother to one changed her lifestyle in April 2009. She decided if she was going to live and see her grandchildren grow and become adults, she was going to have to change.
So she did. Owens doesn’t fry foods anymore. She has cut down on her portion sizes. She belongs to the Weight Watchers program and because of it, eats a combined five servings a day of fruits and vegetables.
The change has resulted in her dropping from a size 24 dress to a size 16.
“It’s never too late, and it is worth being rid of hurting all the time,” Owens said. “I could not walk without limping. It changed the way I walked, and getting up and down off of furniture. Some chairs are not big enough for you. The benefits far outweigh anything you could think of negative.
“Instead of living to eat, I eat to live,” she added. “I don’t sit around waiting for the next meal anymore.”
Laura Hamlin
Hamlin signed up with the Weight Watchers program in high school and lost 60 pounds. Over the years, she gained it back, and more.
But she joined again after the success her mother had from the weight-loss program. Since she joined last year, she has changed her eating habits and her lifestyle. And she also has started working out a few times a week at a local gym, working on cardio and strength training.
“Diabetes runs in the family,” Hamlin said. “My doctor told me that if I didn’t drop the weight that I would develop diabetes and heart disease.”
So Hamlin started cooking more, and eating more vegetables and fruits. After adding these habits, she no longer has sleep apnea, her sugar levels are under control, and her blood pressure medication has been cut in half.
“But I’m still not finished,” she said. “I still have about 60 more pounds to go before I reach my goal. Then, I still won’t be finished. Weight loss is a lifetime commitment –you can’t go back to eating burgers and fries once you lose all your weight, or you’ll be back right where you started, or worse.”
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