The Incredible Shrinking Woman

Ann's Story

By Ann Douglas

I had my first encounter with the scale a little over 36 years ago. I weighed in at a positively svelte 5 lbs. 13 oz.-the one and only time in my life that I would ever be classified as underweight!

Over the next 35 years, I managed to put on an additional 251 pounds. The pounds didn't show up all at once, of course. They were accumulated gradually over a period of years. Some were packed on during my growing up years, when I was more inclined to hit the couch with a plate of chocolate chip cookies than to ride my bike around the block. Others were gained once I reached adolescence and that hormonal cocktail called puberty made it easier for my body to adorn my butt, hips, and thighs with additional layers of fat cells. And then there was the weight I gained during my first year of university, when I was homesick and miserable. (Let's just say that I majored in muffins.)

Every once in a while I'd go on a fitness kick and do something drastic-like signing up for an aerobics class or treating myself to a pair of high-priced jogging shoes in some mistaken belief that the shoes would make the woman. The aerobics classes were a complete disaster. I was no Jane Fonda. My attempts to keep up with the aerobic instructor's fancy footwork made me feel about as graceful and athletic as an elephant in a tutu. My jogging career was similarly shortlived. I'm a fair weather exerciser and the Canadian climate gave me a smorgasbord of reasons for hitting the fridge rather than the great outdoors.

By the time I graduated from university, the number on the scale had hit an all-time high of 200 lbs. If you've passed that mark yourself, you know that it's a major milestone: while you can kid yourself into believing that you're "just a little overweight when the scale reads 199, there's no way you can fool yourself into believing that you're a slightly chubbier version of Pamela Anderson Lee when you weigh in at 200 lbs.

The doctor that I was seeing at the time was a bit of a quack. (Okay, a lot of a quack. He's since lost his medical license!) He suggested that I start popping cold capsules because they would help to curb my appetite. The caffeine in the capsules left me like a plus-sized version of The Bionic Woman. I was so hyper that I was positively vibrating. Unfortunately, the cold capsule remedy didn't do a thing to help my weight problem. The pounds that I had gained during university seemed to like their new home on my body.

Around this time, my high school sweetheart and I set a date for our wedding. Because my childhood fantasies of walking down the aisle did not include wearing a plus-sized wedding gown, I did what any self-respecting 1980s bride-to-be would have done in my shoes: I went on a diet. I was hungry for an entire summer, chomping on carrot sticks and low-fat fish sticks when what I really wanted was a butter-slathered muffin or a nice, juicy steak. If I caught myself drooling, I'd remind myself that it would all be worth it in the end when I sauntered down the aisle, the perfect picture of bridal beauty.

By some miracle, I managed to drop 25 lbs. before the wedding. When I walked down the aisle, I weighed in at a practically Twiggy-like 175 lbs.-something that seemed to impress family members to no end. (Weight is a big thing in my family. It's all well and fine to be rich and famous, or to discover a cure for some horrible disease, but what really counts is being skinny. I mean, how many families do you know that work weigh-ins into their family reunions?)

It's a good thing that so many photos were taken of me on my wedding day. They provide permanent proof that I lost weight before I took that momentous stroll down the aisle. Unfortunately, by the time we got the official wedding photos back from the photographer, the bride in the photos didn't look at all like me! The pounds that I had so painstakingly shed during my Summer of Discontent had come back with a vengeance once I started cooking for my brand new hubby.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. A few months into married life, I decided that it was time for me to get serious about losing weight. I knew that I wanted to start a family in the very near future, and I wasn't too thrilled at the idea of starting out my pregnancy at 200 lbs.

Health was less of a concern for me than good old-fashioned vanity: If those god-awful maternity dresses could make the Demi Moores of the world look frumpy, imagine what they would do to a full-figured gal like me! Little did I know that Demi would ultimately set the bar a few feet higher for image-conscious pregnant women. From the early 1990s onward, we'd be expected to look sexy in the nude!

I managed to get my weight down to 142 lbs.-a healthy weight for someone who's 5'6"-but my newfound slimness was shortlived. I got pregnant the very next month! By the time I was wheeled into labour and delivery nine-and-a-half months later, I had managed to gain back every single pound that I had lost before my pregnancy.

I ended up making that trek to labour and delivery four more times over the next decade. Each time I gave birth, I held on to some souvenirs of my pregnancy: a few more stretch marks on my thighs and stomach and a whole lot more pounds on the rest of me.

If I'd stopped gaining weight after each baby was born, I probably would have been able to keep my weight problems under control. Unfortunately, I am one of those chosen few who is able to gain weight rather than lose weight while I'm breastfeeding. For some strange reason, I can't seem to get motivated to exercise during the only 20 minutes a day when I don't have a baby in my arms. To make matters worse, I tend to eat as often as the baby eats-and, as every nursing mother knows-that can mean chowing down on a dozen or more mini-meals each day!

My disappearing act

In between babies, I tried to ignore my weight. After all, what was the point of going on a diet if I was about to get pregnant again? (I know. My logic was flawed. Chock it up to years of sleep deprivation!) After I gave birth to my last baby, however, I realized that the moment of truth had finally arrived. It was time to do something about the extra weight that I was carrying around since I was no longer going to be able to wear my pregnancy "disguise. (Don't know what I'm talking about? Let me explain. Pregnancy makes a great disguise for a large woman. No one can tell if the extra padding on your belly is due to the baby or the quart of Haagen-Daas that you hoovered the night before-or at least that's what I used to tell myself!)

Of course, I didn't make the resolution to lose weight overnight. It actually took me about a year-and-a-half to get serious about making the commitment. I made a few half-hearted efforts to get in shape (like joining a fitness club, but never going!), but then one day something just clicked in my head and I knew that the time had come to lose the extra weight that I had been carrying around for more than 35 years once and for all.

Since that time, I've made some significant lifestyle changes:

• I've started exercising regularly and have discovered to my amazement that "exercise" isn't necessarily a synonym for "torture." (Who knew that weight training and aerobic exercise could actually be fun?)
• I've started paying more attention to what I'm putting in my mouth-monitoring both what types of foods I'm choosing and the amount I'm shovelling in.
• I've put my support team in place-a network of true-blue friends who cheer my weight loss successes and help me to kick aside the motivational road blocks that seem to crop up from time to time.
• I've spent a lot of time each day focussing on my weight loss goals-thinking about how much weight I've already lost and looking forward to reaching my goal weight in the very near future.

At some point during the past year, I morphed into The Incredible Shrinking Woman. I stopped thinking of myself as someone who is doomed to be fat forever, but rather as a fit person who is temporarily overweight. That shift in attitude has quite literally changed my life. If I'm having a particularly stressful day and I'm tempted to stuff my face with high-fat foods, I simply take a step back and remind myself that a naturally thin person would find other ways of dealing with stress than diving into a sea of carbohydrates. Then I pretend to be that person.

That's not to say that I'm living in some sort of weight loss fantasy world. I still have days when I fall off the bandwagon and have to force myself to get back on again. What's different now is the fact that I get back on track sooner rather than later. Instead of allowing days, weeks, or months to go by before I get back on my program of healthy living, I force The Incredible Shrinking Woman (the writer formerly known as Ann!) to get her butt back on that wagon right away, like it or not. After all, a naturally slim woman wouldn't allow herself to be seduced by M & Ms for weeks on end, just because she had a fight with her husband. Nor would she hole up in some sleazy-looking coffee shop with a dreamy-looking slice of cheesecake just because her children were giving her grief. If anything, Ms. Slim would lose her appetite momentarily and head to the gym to work off some of the stress. (I know: these naturally slim folks can be a bit hard to stomach at times.)

Why this book?

The bookstores shelves are overflowing with books that promise to teach you the secrets to losing weight. (The last time I counted, there were more than 700 such titles in print!) So allow me to answer the question that's no doubt running through your head: why does the world need another weight loss book?

The answer is simple: because this book is different. The Incredible Shrinking Woman is the first book that zeroes in on the unique weight loss challenges faced by women and passes on the types of weight loss secrets that only your most trusted girlfriends would dare to whisper about. How many guys do you know who would willingly admit to hitting the Tim Horton drive-thru the night before they started a diet? Or to wearing shorts to the doctor's office on a blustery October day so that the scale would show the lowest possible weight? We're talking about privileged, pink ghetto information here!

Of course, you won't just find out what I've learned from 25 years of studying at the Faculty of Weight Loss of the School of Hard Knocks. You'll also pick up tips and ideas from the dozens of women who agreed to be interviewed for this book-both career dieters and born-again skinnies. You'll find out what they have to say about every conceivable aspect of losing weight-the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Something else that makes this book unique is the fact that it is written by someone who can best be described as a genuine work-in-progress: a voluptuous, full-figured gal who is still in the trenches when it comes to weight loss and who can talk about the joys and challenges of losing weight from that perspective. I haven't forgotten how difficult it can be to stay motivated when the bag of Hallowe'en candy on top of the fridge is calling your name. Nor have I lost sight of the thrill of fitting into the pair of jeans that's been languishing in the back of your cupboard for as long as you can remember! (Hey, if you hold on to them long enough they come back into style!) I'm still a passenger on this roller coaster ride called weight loss, so I have no choice but to describe the world from the vantage point of a Woman of Size (or is that Thighs?)

What you won't find in this book

What you won't find in this book is a lot of holier-than-thou pontificating. I don't know about you, but I've had it up to here with diet books written by celebrities who were overweight for all of 20 minutes of their adult lives, and who take that as a license to preach the gospel of slimness to the rest of us!

These folks with their personal trainers and in-home chefs seem to lose sight of the fact that we each have our own personal challenges to deal with when it comes to losing weight. Perhaps you're married to a shiftworker, so you end up eating meals at strange times of the day; you have four kids and find it difficult to get to the gym; and you have a stressful job that requires that you put in an insane number of hours at your desk. (Wait a minute, I just described my own life!) What I'm trying to say is that just as there's no such thing as one-size-fits-all pantyhose--a lesson I learned the hard way a good twenty years ago--there's no such thing as a "one-size-fits-all weight loss program. If it was that easy to lose weight, you and I would have done it years ago. Right?

What you will find in this book

What you will find in this book is a smorgasbord of insider information about losing weight-the types of nitty-gritty, no-nonsense advice most books tend to ignore. Rather than feeling like you've committed to reading a 300 page sermon from the latest Oprah-approved weight loss guru, you'll feel like you're eavesdropping on a juicy conversation between a bunch of weight-savvy women.

This book will arm you with the facts on

• what it means to be overweight (when there's cause for concern and when there's not)
• what motivates women to lose weight
• avoiding fad diets and weight loss scams that could hurt your body or your budget
• designing a food plan and a fitness programme that are right for you (studies have shown that you're more likely to keep the weight off if you come up with a custom weight loss programme rather than using a ready-made programme)
• getting your head in the game before you make any lifestyle changes
• lining up your own personal cheerleading squad and giving nay-sayers their walking papers
• putting your scale in its place
• avoiding the motivation zappers that can cause you to fall off the wagon-and picking yourself up if you do happen to fall off
• what success really means when it comes to weight loss.

You'll also find plenty of useful tools:

• a body mass index table that will help you to set a realistic weight loss goal
• a copy of Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating
• a directory of resources that's packed with information of interest to anyone who is serious about losing weight: contact information for dozens of nutrition and fitness-related organizations, web sites, and more
• a list of recommended readings in case you want to do some further reading on the whole business of losing weight
• checklists and tips that are designed to support your weight loss success.
• You'll also come across a few other bells and whistles as you're making your way through the book:
• practical tips on losing weight, getting active, and leading a healthier lifestyle from "real" women who've been there, done that--and lived to tell!
• the truth about some of the most common myths about dieting and weight loss
• pop culture tidbits and trivia that relate to weight loss and
• dozens of little-known facts about nutrition and fitness.

As you've no doubt gathered by now, this book is unlike any other weight loss book you've ever read. It's packed with essential tips and tools, and yet it's not afraid to have a little fun along the way. (I think there's some unwritten commandment that states that weight loss books can't be fun. This won't be the first commandment I've broken, I'm afraid, and it probably won't be the last!)

Ready to morph into an Incredible Shrinking Woman yourself? Grab that measuring tape, hop on that scale, and get ready to hit the next chapter running.

Excerpt from: The Incredible Shrinking Woman:
The Girlfriend's Guide to Losing Weight