Atkins Success Stories
Vicki Kleber
Vicki Kleber - Age 40- Pennsylvania
I lost 60 lbs.
My Story
MY STORY:
I have always been a physically active person, even at my heaviest weight, I could jog two miles, and my husband and I are avid cross country skiers and kayakers. But in my late 30s my weight began to get out of control. I was having indigestion problems, and my knees were beginning to hurt. In August of 2005, I made a routine trip to my gynecologist, and was seen by a new doctor. After giving my chart a thorough look, he said to me, "Do you realize you’re gaining about five pounds every year? If you keep gaining, what do you think you'll weigh by the time you're 50?” This was the first time anyone had ever been blunt with me about my weight – I weighed about 215 lbs at the time. I was stunned - I had always ignored my weight at the doctor’s office, asking the nurses to just write it on my chart while I looked away.
MY GOALS:
It was getting harder to ignore. I was down to about two pairs of jeans, and the buttons on my heavy coat were straining. I just kept buying bigger clothes or stuffing myself into my old ones. As for my indigestion, a retired nurse had suggested I might have lactose intolerance. So I went to a pharmacy at lunchtime to buy Lactase pills. Waiting in line at the checkout, I saw a copy of Dr. Atkins book on a rack. I still have no idea why I picked it up - I guess I was just desperate. I had lost more than 40 lbs two other times following a low fat/low cal approach, and had always gained it back, plus extra weight, so I was skeptical of any "diet.” But I bought the book and began to read. I couldn't put it down. It was like he was describing me - indigestion, weight gain, acne, mood swings.
HOW ATKINS HELPED ME GET THERE:
I officially started Atkins the morning I left for a hiking vacation in Lake Tahoe. We had rented a condo, so we went to the grocery store, bought all our own food, and cooked ourselves. We hiked all week and stuck with induction, with the exception that I never gave up eating my beloved peanuts or my evening glass of wine. Within two days, my energy was incredible, and the indigestion was gone! I came home four pounds lighter. So I stayed with it. That was Labor Day week. By Christmas, I had lost over twenty pounds – I was shrinking. The clothes I longed to "get back into" were too big. By the following summer, my weight was down around 162, but some of my size ten clothes were too big. Now, here I am in 2008, in the healthy-for-my-height 150s. I have permanently changed the way I eat. No sugar, no white flour - lots of meat and veggies. At age 40, I now run three miles at lunchtime, all the way up to the top of Mt. Washington. The 40-year old me feels younger than I did ten years ago. I constantly get lectures from the whole world about the "dangers" of how I eat, but I feel like I've discovered the fountain of youth. I wouldn't go back to being a "pasta and bread" person for anything. An Atkins bar is always my midmorning snack, and I eat sugar-free ice cream as my treat several times a week. Atkins is amazing - I can feel so full that I feel guilty, but I step on the scale and my weight never goes up. I tell everyone when they ask (and I run into people that don't recognize me sometimes) that Dr. Atkins saved my life. I was headed down the path of being just another middle aged, puffy, bloated, overweight American woman with loads of prescriptions. Dr. Atkins helped me turn that around 100%.
I am forever grateful.
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