Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004

Dedication pays off in pounds


Lori Wolfe/The Herald-Dispatch

Sheila Smith swims laps Monday before participating in a water exercise class at the YMCA in Huntington.

Sheila Smith won’t say what she weighed when she decided to really start losing pounds about 13 months ago.

What the 47-year-old will tell you is that she was on disability from her job as a public school employee because her arthritis made it too painful to get around and that she faced the possibility of spending the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

She was living in Louisiana at the time. When she stopped working, Smith moved to the Huntington area to be with family. A few months later, she started going to the Huntington YMCA and practicing Atkins -- a diet of strictly meat, cheese and eggs and a multivitamin.

Since then, she’s lost 204 pounds.

Her cholesterol has gone down, as well as her blood pressure. And best of all, she’s more mobile.

"When I come here in the morning and swim, I feel better all day," said Smith, who taught special education in Louisiana for 23 years. "I don’t feel stiff until about 10 o’clock at night. It will never get rid of the arthritis, but it makes it bearable."

Before she changed her lifestyle, she had trouble walking. When she went to the mall, she sat on a bench while her daughter held up clothes for her from the store window. When she went to Wal-Mart, she used the motorized wheelchairs.

"I stopped doing things I enjoyed because I hurt," said Smith, who has two 19-year-old adopted children. "To walk from the bedroom to the living room couch was atrocious."

The first week she went to the Y, she just sat in the water. Eventually, she was able to take a water aerobics class offered in the warm-water pool for members with arthritis. She couldn’t do most of the exercises at first, but kept at it. Eventually, the class got to be too easy.

After that, Smith continued to try new water aerobics classes and increase her activity level.

She said she’s fortunate that she can spend as much time as she does at the Y -- which anymore is three to six hours a day, seven days a week. Her workouts include various water aerobics classes, swimming a mile a day, weight-training and lots of abdominal exercises. A former EMT and volunteer firefighter, Smith also works part time as a lifeguard at the Y.

She now walks around the mall with ease. Last year, she paid someone to cut her grass. This year, "I have to fight my father for the lawn mower. I love it. I can run with it."

Her accomplishments are nothing short of miraculous, said her father, Doyle Smith of Huntington, who gets daily reports from Sheila about her weight loss.

Smith weighs herself every day. If she doesn’t lose, she swims extra hard.

Every once in a while, she plateaus in her weight loss, but she doesn’t cheat much. On rare occasions, she’ll eat a frozen yogurt from McDonalds, without the cone. Last week, she ate one garlic-cheese biscuit from Red Lobster. One little treat like that usually does the trick, and the weight loss gets going again, she said.

Her target weight is 140 pounds. At that point, she’ll start adding other healthy foods to her diet, but will continue the swimming workouts for life.

"My motivation is feeling better and encouragement from friends," Smith said. "People I don’t even know come up (and encourage me). It’s neat to share your story because it encourages other people, too."


http://www.herald-dispatch.com/2004.../04/LNlist3.htm

What a great story. She must feel so proud of herself. She looks great.

I have to agree, exercise is very important in any weight loss plan. When I started exercising the pounds just flew off, since I've stopped, though the weight is still coming off, I've noticed a big slow down.

I'm starting to get active again and I'm looking forward to hitting goal by the end of the year.

Thanks for sharing that story.

As someone who was losing my mobility because of my weight and has regained it because of Atkins -- and also as someone who regularly swims a mile at the YMCA -- I can relate to her story. I can even remember sitting in the mall while my daugter shopped because it was just too painful for me to walk around when I weighed over 350 pounds and it is that now distant memory that keeps me going whenever I am tempted to eat something high carb.

However, do you think she really eats only meat, cheese, and eggs or is this just the reporter's misunderstanding of Atkins coming through? I hate to think that is all she has been eating for over a year!

It was a nice story, except for that. I'm sure she eats some vegetables!

But it was a great accomplishment.

That got my attention as well. I may fire off an email to the reporter to right her on this one.
Can you imagine losing over 200 lbs in some 13 months on roughly 0 grams of fiber? ouch.

lololol.....so true...so true....and amazing story..amazing accomplishment

I am fairly sure that was the reporter interpretation. Looks like he added that little blurb in order to explain the diet for the half dozen people who have been lost in the jungle this past year and haven't heard of Atkins. Unfortunately he got it wrong.

Yep, that caught my eye, too. Reminded me of a girl I had dinner with last night. A bunch of us girls that used to work together go out for dinner once every few months. The girl I'm talking about was saying that she's on Dr. Bernstein's and she gets vitamin shots 3 times per week and when asked about it she said it's a "no carb diet". So, me being the brat that I am asked her, "so, you don't eat vegetables??" and she says, "oh, yes, I eat vegetables and fruits" - when I said to her that there's carbs in those she said "oh, yeah, I know that" - whatever!! She says all this, BTW, with a burger in one hand while eating fries with gravy with the other

Just had to share that one!

Don't get me started on this Dr. Bernstein guy. (A different Dr. Bernstein from the "Diabetes Solution" Dr. Bernstein, by the way) His diet is an ultra-low-cal diet of *supposedly* 850 to 950 calories per day (but apparently works out to about 500 calories per day) and his services are costly to say the least. I know a bunch of women who have signed themselves up to one of his clinics -- and there are a lot of them across Ontario -- and while they do lose weight, they don't look or seem happy. I saw one going into the bank one day while she was on the diet, and she was *emaciated* and had to lean heavily on her husband for physical support. She is no longer on the diet and is now eating "normally" again, and guess what? The weight is coming back, and she's out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. Check out this report from CBC's Marketplace: http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/...bernstein_diet/

It's a measure of the desperation people feel that they will subject themselves to this. It makes me so sad.

There is about a dozen people that I know of from my office that have gone to the Bernstein clinic. They have all lost tremendous amount of weight. I spoke at length to a few of these people about their experience. This is the impression I was left with. It's actually a low-carb AND low-fat diet. It's very closely supervised, I suppose that's how they justify the cost. You have to go there several times a week to be monitored. Since it's a ketogenic diet, they check for ketosis, give you shots, monitor your weight etc. They will also address your complaints by providing you with extra supplements. They girl I spoke with, showed me her potassium supplements. She was told to take them because she felt cold all the time.

She lost 60 lbs on this regime and is now quite slim. Another guy across from her lost over 100 lbs. He was quite hefty. He is not exactly slim now, but much improved. Another girl, I spoke to, lost 80 lbs, she is also now quite slim.

Both girls said they didn't feel hungry when they were loosing, probably the effect of ketosis. I found one girl looked a little....deflated. I suppose the effect of fast weight loss. The other girl looked great, but she excercised during the weight loss, even though it wasn't recommended.

There is no doubt that this is a brutal regime, however, from what I can see ... it works. And between that and Weight Loss Surgery, I'd know what I would pick. At least it doesn't hack apart your insides.

So I'm left with a mixed reaction. On the plus side, it works and you get lots of help and supervision... and you are left with lost weight and a nicely reduced appetite. On the negative side it's brutal, low-fat (ick!) and tremendously expensive.

I'm a little dismissive of that article by Marketplace. One expert says that this type of plan should be only done under medical supervision. Duh, really? What does he think the three visits per week are, if not medical supervision. As for the people who quit, well, there are no such thing as 100% success on any plan and obviously, as in any diet plan, if you start eating the way you did before you WILL gain the weight back.

So, like I said, I was left with a mixed opinion.

apparently, there are B vitamins in the shots and I don't know what else but I was talking about this with Karen last night at dinner and she said that the vitamins give you a feeling of 'euphoria and wellbeing' so I guess you don't realize that you're sooooo hungry!

I hear you when you say that it works but at what cost to your metabolism in the future. At even 950 cals/day (and that is high from the info given) it's well below anybody's BMR and would slow a person's metabolism to a crawl. As soon as calories were increased (even just to 1200 etc) the majority of these people, presumably, would start gaining weight because their metabolism would be shot. Maybe the person who exercised would be alright...

I just find that when I follow Atkins I don't feel that hunger and my cals are at an appropriate level.

I didn't say anything negative against Dr Bernstein's diet to her but I hate the idea of paying all that money to somebody when I can do Atkins for free (other than the cost of food, of course, which I would be buying regardless of plan). I've done the Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, WW.... I'm not paying anybody else

I'm glad she lifts weights. To all of you that read this post, follow her example. Lift weights. Even if you're a woman.

(That is, if it's not dangerous for you...Talk to your doctor, etc., yada yada, agd inc. cannot be held responsible for any consequences incurred by pumping iron [except for the great health and weight loss benefits])