Lady Shanny’s weight loss via healthy eating habits and Weight Watchers

December 06 2007 (updated April 10 2008)

Lady Shanny (Shannon Canaday)

City & Country: Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Age: 28
Weight Before Diet: 249.8 pounds
Weight Now: 175 pounds
Target Weight: 174 pounds or less

The structure, accountability and support provided by the Weight Watchers weight loss program were what drew Lady Shanny to it for her lifestyle change. Here, she discusses some of the other aspects of her journey to better health and gives tips that are based on her personal experience.

-What finally made you decide to start a weight loss program?
I was really sick of feeling like crap all the time. Plus, I started to notice people around me starting to lose weight and I felt a little left behind. I gave it a lot of thought before I decided to do it. I knew that this would be the last time and that I had to be sure I even wanted to do it. Yes, being fat sucks, but there is a certain ‘safety’ about it (for me anyway) and I knew I could not allow myself to fail. I also refused to be fat on my 30th birthday and that is just over a year away.

-What type of weight loss program are you following?
After all the thought, I opted for Weight Watchers. I had done Weight Watchers before, in my mid-teens (and looking back at pictures, I can’t even believe that they let me in the door! Talk about screwed up body image!)

-Why did you choose this program?
I realized that I needed the structure and accountability that the program provides, not to mention the support. I’ve now progressed to using the program to suit me, rather than the other way around. On Weight Watchers, you can actually eat anything you want as long as you stay within your allotted points. What that means is that you could be successful eating only hamburgers and ice cream. You’d be hungry and not very healthy, but it can be done. Through research on diet and nutrition, I chose to follow the points system, but to also eliminate all the junk and empty calories. I have found that my body feels cleaner and healthier as a result. Additionally, if while active in the program, I am training myself to eat healthier and make more intelligent choices, then I’ve actually made a lifestyle change rather than ‘suffered’ through a diet.

-How long have you been on your program?
At the time of writing this interview I have been following Weight Watchers for 11 weeks (and have lost 31.6 pounds!).

-What kinds of physical activities do you like doing to help you lose weight and stay active?
For the first few weeks on Weight Watchers, I didn’t do any additional physical exercise. And then one day I read a quote that struck my heart. “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.” I realized that I want more out of my life than what I perceive to be reasonable and possible and I knew that I would have to start doing more that just what was comfortable. So I started going to Aquafit. Unfortunately, the amount of chlorine that they put in the pools was just too hard on my sensitive skin. So after a couple of weeks of that, I decided that I would start walking to work. Now I walk 5kms (3.1 miles) every day and I feel fantastic for it. I don’t enjoy exercise just for the sake of exercising so when I started, I told myself I was doing the walking to avoid really bad traffic. The fact that I got a benefit from it was just icing. Now that I’ve been doing it for a month, I really enjoy it and find that by the time the weekend is over, I’m looking forward to getting back to it. I’ve also started lifting some free weights to try and get my upper body to match my lower body (all the walking is making my arse look fantastic!). I do this in the privacy of my living room, in my pajamas most of the time. Gyms are not for me…maybe one day.

-What were the most difficult obstacles you had to overcome or are still overcoming?
I didn’t have any real struggles overcoming any food related obstacles. Because I researched caloric and nutritional information, I knew what was in the junk food and I just couldn’t see putting that in my body. In the beginning of the program, I was eating more empty calories (rice cakes, sugar free pudding) but gradually eliminated even those in favour of healthier options. I will still eat the occasional Purdy’s Hedgehog but it’s very rare and I make sure that my head knows that it is a TREAT and not a staple. Currently, I’m struggling with the walking because I developed shin splints very early on. Those are mostly recovered now but there is a flare-up of sciatica in my arse that I’m contending with. I like to think of these minor issues as ‘working out the bugs in an under-used body’.

-How do you keep yourself motivated?
The motivation for me comes in seeing the number on the scale be lower every week. It comes in my clothes fitting better. It comes in seeing the pile of ‘to donate’ clothes growing as I get too small for them. It comes in hearing people tell me I look good. It comes in looking in the mirror in the morning and realizing that even my makeup looks better on me now. Most of all, it comes from doing something that is good for me and makes me respect myself.

-Do you have any weight loss tips for our readers?
Water is a big key. It flushes out toxins and can help you avoid the urge to munch. Also, planning. PLAN! Plan and prepare the night before. Especially when you first start a new program. Nothing will throw you off track as quickly as if you get up in the morning and can’t figure out what to take for lunch, or don’t have time to measure out cereal and milk. Do the prep while you have the time. When I grocery shop (which I only do once a week now), I portion out everything right when I get it home. That way things are easy to grab and throw in the lunch bag. I cook only on the weekends and then have reheats during the week so I don’t have to think about cooking or shopping. I find that the less time I spend thinking about food, the easier the whole thing is.

-Do you think it will be easy to fall back into your old lifestyle pattern?
I think that I would probably have to have a lobotomy to forget how good I feel now and to allow myself to consume things that are so laden with chemicals and fat. Once the weight is all gone, I will relax the restrictions a little and go ‘lean and mean’ Monday to Friday and then treat myself on the weekend. There is far more room to maneuver when you are maintaining rather than losing. I could probably do the ‘relaxing’ thing now, but I still have a fair ways to go and I would prefer not to waste any of my ‘losing days’. Especially being a woman, I already automatically have one crappy week every month. All that said, it certainly is less work to eat whatever and sit around on the couch. I have a lot of support though and when you can’t believe in yourself, sometimes someone else believing in you will get you by until you can again.

UPDATE: Well, it's been 7 months to the date that I started Weight Watchers and I am down 75 pounds with only around 10 more to go. I've recently stopped going to the Weight Watchers meetings. I'm still following the guidelines of their program but I just didn't want to keep paying for the meetings every week.

Without one doubt in my mind those meetings were crucial for the first 90% but I believe that there comes a time that you have to learn how to go it alone so I stopped going. Since I stopped going I've lost another 10+ pounds so I'm still on the right track.

I quit walking to work in January and instead took up jogging in the evenings. I now jog 5 days a week, 4 are shorter runs and one long run on Sunday. I ran an 8k run in 58 minutes at the beginning of March and now I'm working toward running 10k in July, hopefully without having to stop to walk. That's the goal, we'll see if I can get there.

I have to admit that my focus has changed slightly. Since I have only a little weight left to lose I had to give myself a longer-term challenge. Once the weight is gone I needed something just as healthy to focus on so as not to lose any motivation or drive I have to keep the weight off. Since fitness is an ongoing, lifelong work in progress there will never be an end date like there is with weight loss. I know that I will have to watch what I eat and make sure that I keep getting enough exercise for my whole life.

Fitness training and giving myself challenges and goals to meet along the way will only help with that.