LOST: 110 LBS
AGE: 29
MY STORY: "I had been overweight since I was 10 years old. All through my teens into my early twenties, I led a largely sedentary lifestyle and survived on a diet heavy on sugar and other carbs. Chances are if it were sweet, salty or greasy, I’d have a double helping of it.
By the time I graduated from college at age 21, I was 5 feet, 10 inches and weighed nearly 265 pounds. Yet, all the while, somehow I knew that someday I’d have the will and determination to not only lose the weight but also change my nutrition habits altogether. I just didn’t know when or how.
For me, it wasn’t a trip to the doctor and the delivery of a life or death ultimatum. (Although I did long to be able to bend down and tie my shoelaces without gasping for breath afterwards.) In fact, I was comfortable with who I was. I guess you’d call it fate that when I finally made the decision to get serious about my health, along came the Atkins craze in 2003.
I had some previous success with other diets. But immediately with Atkins, I saw that it wasn’t just a fad diet. This was the complete lifestyle change that I had been destined to undergo. The tenets of Atkins made perfect sense, and I loved that I didn’t have to spend a dime with membership fees or packaged meals to reach my goals.
A devout carnivore, I also loved the fact that I could eat any kind of meat I wanted. The hardest part was giving up the sweet stuff, like my weekly purchase of Little Debbie snack cakes. But with a few reservations, I did it – if only just to see what my full potential would be if I committed to the diet 100 percent.
I’ll never forget my shock and excitement when I looked down at the scale after two weeks in the Induction phase to discover that I had dropped 12 pounds. From then on, there was no looking back. It took me only three months to go from 265 pounds down to 185 pounds. I was amazed. I had accomplished in three months what it took me almost a year to do on other diets.
The results I saw kept me motivated and encouraged me to become more physically active. I eventually discovered a passion for running that I never knew I had. When I began Atkins, jogging on a treadmill for 20 minutes at 5 miles per hour was my limit. But today, after having kept the weight off for six years (and at much leaner 155 pounds, I might add!), I regularly run 25 to 30 miles a week around my neighborhood and local parks. I’ve completed my first half-marathon this past winter and hope to finish my first full marathon this fall. I owe this all to the Atkins way of life.
MY GOALS:
Better eating habits, better all-around general fitness.
HOW ATKINS HELPED ME GET THERE:
I discovered what kinds of foods and what portion sizes I should eat to maintain a healthy lifestyle."