I'm 73
Pounds Down & Still Going Strong Weight Loss Success Story
From
eDiets - The online diet, fitness, and healthy living resource
Want to know the
secret to lasting weight loss? Go ask Alice... as in Alice Tankersley, this
week’s shining example of an
eDiets
success story!
More than half of U.S. adults are
overweight and many are so desperate to lose weight they’ll try just about
anything... from fad diets to surgery.
Alice can relate. Despite battling obesity
for the last two decades, she had failed time and again at lasting weight
loss.
The pre-school teacher watched her weight
soar to 224 pounds before she realized dieting was no longer a kid's game. With
her health failing and no relief in sight, Alice was more than ready for a
healthy new lifestyle.
The final blow: her father passed away from
complications linked to Type 2 diabetes, a disease that affects an estimated
15.3 million people. Many of the victims are overweight.
The cards had been dealt and Alice appeared
to be holding a losing hand, but this gritty eDieter refused to fold.
"I lost my father to Type 2 diabetes and it
was difficult to watch," she tells
eDiets
from her home in Colorado. "I knew it was a matter of time before it happened
to me. As well as having family history, I had already been diagnosed with high
blood pressure and cholesterol.
"At work, I was finding it difficult to get
up and down from the floor with the children. It was difficult to get in tight
spaces in the classroom. One day a parent showed me a picture of me with her
child. When I saw it, I gasped. I was shocked. I didn’t recognize the
woman in the picture. I was so upset I knew the time had come to take charge."
A few days after feeling floored by the
startling photo, Alice stumbled upon an
eDiets
"Lose 10 Pounds By..." banner. It's been all downhill since then for her weight
and all uphill for her energy, health and outlook!
Since connecting with
eDiets
14 months ago the 42-year-old teacher has earned an A in sensible weight loss.
Her 5'5" figure now supports a much more manageable 151 pounds.
The eDieting experience has been a
fantastic learning process for Alice. From the get-go, she had no problem
identifying late-night eating as the worst of her bad eating habits. From the
time she would arrive home from work, it was open mouth, insert food
practically non-stop! Fitness flunky Alice would follow her big dinners with
one fattening snack after another.
But that all changed when newly motivated
mom of two (fraternal twins) accepted the losing proposition offered by
eDiets.
"The meal planning was very attractive to
me," raves the slimming superstar. "I was very busy and it’s always been
hard for me to figure out exactly what I needed to eat. The fitness portion of
the program was also very attractive.
"I liked the fact that the support boards
were there. I didn’t use them at first. But after the first few months, I
began checking in every day. I started posting more and more. The most valuable
aspect of the program was getting to talk with friends online every day."
Alice encountered a lot of like-minded men
and women on the 40-Something board. She says the support boards gave her a
special place to go during both the good and bad times. She now had a school of
fellow dieters with whom she could share her successes and struggles.
Today, this woman who once didn’t have
a clue about healthy eating is now mentoring new dieters. Talk about going to
the head of the class!
That hasn’t been the only major change
for Alice. Before joining
eDiets,
she constantly battled fatigue and was "always too tired to do anything." The
re-energized eDieter now comes home every night, puts on her sneakers and heads
for the gym!
"When I first joined, I couldn’t
exercise very much at all," she says. "I had problems with my feet and my
knees. My blood pressure was so high I wasn’t able to walk around the
block without feeling winded and week. I started off walking on the treadmill
at the gym from 15 to 20 minutes and slowly worked up to where I am now."
She now hits the gym six days a week. There
at her home away from home she takes step aerobics, ladies toning and karate
aerobics. She also does weight training and when the weather is right she
enjoys a brisk morning walk. She’s lately been tossing around the idea of
taking up jogging or even cross-country skiing.
Just how far has she traveled? Well, the
former fitness misfit has been tabbed "member of the month" at her gym!
Easing the remarkable transformation:
Alice's 20-year-old daughter Karen. The mother/daughter team eat the same great
eDiets
dishes and workout together at the gym. Not only has Alice shed those pesky
pounds with the
eDiets
plan, but her dedicated daughter is following in her shrinking footsteps.
Karen has dropped 25 pounds to date!
eDiets
has impacted the entire Tankersley family. Alice frequently hears hubby Ken
boasting about her weight-loss success. And just the other day, she overheard
him plugging the online program to his sister.
Hard work has paid off for Alice. Her blood
pressure is down along with her weight. Her ultimate goal is to drop another 17
pounds and reach 134.
"I never expected to be able to get to the
point where I am and also enjoy it," she says. "When I knew I had 90 pounds to
lose, I felt that was such a big number I didn’t want to think of it in
its entirety. I thought I would do the best I could changing habits and maybe I
would lose 10 or 20 pounds."
Alice says there’s no stopping her
now. She hasn't been a size 10 since she gave birth to kids Karen and Kevin two
decades ago, but Alice vows she WILL reach that size again. |
