FEED YOUR BODY RIGHT: SHE SLIMMED DOWN BY SITTING DOWN
When it comes to eating, Kathy Wilson was a stand-up kind of person. She would stand at the cupboard and snack. She would stand at the refrigerator and snack. “I can honestly say that I never sat down and ate a meal,” says the 48-year-old DeWitt, Michigan, resident.
By the time she reached her mid-forties, Kathy weighed 262 pounds. Her blood pressure was way above normal. And she no longer wanted to go out with her husband, because she was embarrassed by her size.
All of these factors drove Kathy to confront her weight problem. She knew that she had to slim down, but how?
After looking into several weight-loss programs, Kathy decided to enroll in Jenny Craig. In the program, clients eat prepackaged meals until they’re halfway to their goal weights. Then they switch to preparing their own food, using menus provided by Jenny Craig.
“Typically, when you think of a diet, you think of what you can’t eat,” Kathy says. “But I learned that I can eat what I want, as long as I control my portions.”
She also learned to stop sabotaging her weight-loss program by eating in front of the fridge. “When I started adding up the calories, I realized that I was taking in a lot more than I should have been, mostly because of my stand-up meals and snacks,” Kathy ‘ “* says. “Sitting down«t the kitchen or dining room table each time I ate forced me to be more aware of the food that I was putting in my mouth.”
Within a year of starting the Jenny Craig program, Kathy had lost 100 pounds. She has maintained her goal weight of 162 pounds since April 1994.
Now that she’s slimmer, Kathy is more active than she used to be. She loves to run, ice-skate, and play softball. She was so impressed with how the Jenny Craig program changed her life that she became the director of a Jenny Craig center in Lansing, Michigan. “I want to help others achieve their weight-loss goals, as I have,” she says.
WINNING ACTION
Leave stand-up to the comedians. Research shows that nearly all of us, whether we’re heavy or slim, underestimate by 20 to 50 percent how much we eat. Like Kathy, we forget about the snacking in front of the refrigerator, the taste-testing during meal preparation, the nibbling during meetings at work. And those calories can add up fast. To keep tabs on absentminded eating, get in the habit of sitting at the table for every meal and snack. This simple action will help remind you that what you’re putting in your mouth counts toward your daily calorie intake. You may realize that you’re not as hungry as you thought!
*42\89\8*
