WIN THE FAT WAR: SHE DISCOVERED HER HIPS AT AGE 33
In 1987, Fay Hodge stepped onto a scale at a Weight Watchers meeting. It was the first step of a journey in which she would lose 111 pounds and find a tremendous power within herself: the power to choose.
Fay had struggled with her weight since childhood. Like most of us, she was taught to eat everything on her plate. “My grandmother used to say that what I didn’t finish at dinner, she’d scramble into my eggs the next morning,” recalls the Fairfax, Virginia, resident. “She was teasing, but I got the message. My family worked hard to put food on the table. My job was to eat it.”
Unfortunately, the combination of eating too much and exercising too litde quickly took its toll. At age 7, Fay was put on her first diet by her doctor. It didn’t work. Neither did the diets that followed. She just kept gaining. At age 33, she weighed 266 pounds— “I was uncomfortable in my own skin and getting ready to develop another set of stretch marks,” she says.
At the time, a friend of Fay’s was going to Weight Watchers, and she urged Fay to join, too. It was through the organization’s weekly meetings that Fay came to a profound realization: Her weight and her health are the culmination of countless choices that she makes every day.
“I can choose to eat the right foods in the right portions and be successful, or I can choose to eat foods and portions that will cause weight gain,” she explains. “The decision is mine. I’m in control.”
With a newfound sense of empowerment, Fay embraced the Weight Watchers principles, eating a wider variety of nutritious foods, monitoring her portion control, and drinking lots of water. She also increased her level of physical activity by walking briskly three or four times a week. And sure enough, the weight came off.
“There is nothing more exciting than discovering a hip bone. I felt like Columbus!” she says. “I was absolutely intrigued that there was a body underneath all of those layers.”
In just 1 year, Fay took off 111 pounds. And she has kept off the weight for 11 years. Today, at age 45, she’s a statuesque 5′ 11″ and a size 12. She was so inspired by her own success that she became a Weight Watchers leader, helping others take the first steps of their own weight-loss journeys.
WINNING ACTION
It’s never too late to lose. When weight gain starts so early in life, it’s all that much harder to realize that there is a thin person in there, just begging to come out. Overweight needn’t be anyone’s destiny. Determination and the realization that you will succeed is the first step. When you start to doubt, just think of Fay.
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