THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509130025
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: FITNESS QUEST
The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star asked for volunteers to join a
six-month weight-loss and fitness program.
SOURCE: By DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines
LUNCH AT A local pizza place. Dawne Brooks ordered a chicken sandwich. Plain, with mayo on the side.
But when the sandwich arrived with a heaping pile of french fries, she sent it back.
``Scrape them off,'' she told the waitress. ``I don't even want to see them.''
Into the third month of the Virginian-Pilot's Fitness Quest, and with success beginning to show in the fit of her clothes, her emerging cheekbones and declining numbers on the scale, Brooks was not about to let a greasy meal jeopardize her progress.
``Look,'' she said, easily running her finger between the waistband of her skirt and her stomach. ``I could never do this before.''
Brooks, 46, had the farthest to go of our four featured Fitness Quest participants. Weighing in at 263 pounds when she began the program in late June, she'd been called ``morbidly obese'' by her doctor, a term she despises.
Now, for the first time in her life, she's losing weight without deprivation dieting. At the August weigh-in the scale showed she'd dropped 7 1/2 pounds since July, and was now down to 248 1/2.
``Whoa, boy! You are losing some weight,'' crowed Dr. David Swain, who tests our Fitness Quest participants through Old Dominion University's Wellness Institute and Research Center.
``Thank God. Thank God. Thank God,'' Brooks chanted as she bounced off the scale, her face aglow.
Her success comes from incorporating exercise into her regular routine. She walks most mornings at Janaf Shopping Center, where she works as a relocation specialist for the Navy. Three nights a week she takes a water aerobics class at the Salvation Army's community center in Norfolk.
She's also changed her eating habits. Because she spends much of the day in her car, she was used to driving to fast-food windows for meals. Now she keeps a cooler packed with healthy snacks in her car. Instead of burgers when she's hungry, it's yogurt and bagels.
When she does eat out, she does so carefully. Instead of polishing off an oversized portion of salmon, like the one she encountered on a recent business trip, she took more than half of it home.
She was particularly pleased with her progress because much of the past month has been spent on the road. But even in hotels in Charleston, S.C., and San Diego she managed to maintain her new regime.
In Charleston, to avoid the stifling summer heat, she worked out on the hotel's treadmill every day. In San Diego, she walked the city. She stuck to chicken and pasta for meals, mainly avoiding the heavy cream-based sauces she loves.
Once, she gave in to her craving for Fettucine Alfredo. But it was merely a blip on her otherwise stellar performance.
``It was nice getting on that plane and not worrying if the seatbelt would fit,'' she said.
Still, she didn't think she was doing that well until one day a friend pulled out the picture that ran in The Virginian-Pilot after her first Fitness Fest weigh-in in late June. When she compared it to the face she sees in the mirror these days, she realized what progress she'd made.
But she isn't taking her success for granted. In her Day-Timer organizer is a card a friend sent soon after she started the quest. ``Don't look back,'' it reads. Also clipped in her organizer is a picture of herself with another friend - a thin friend. She keeps the picture to remind her of how obese she looks in comparison to a skinny person.
``I don't view myself as heavy when I'm walking around,'' she said. ``But I recognize it when I see a picture like that.''
Our other featured fitness-participants aren't doing as well.
One, in fact, has dropped out. George Bergmann, 68, missed two weigh-ins for this month's story and said he couldn't commit to future evaluations.
Reggie Towns, our 33-year-old former athlete, slid backward in August. Not only did he gain back the 2 pounds he'd lost the previous month, but he gained another pound on top of that, putting him above his pre-Fitness Quest weight of 251.
He blames it on a weeklong cruise he and his wife took in the Caribbean. ``Those 12:30 (a.m.) buffets are a killer,'' he laughed.
He continued exercising on the cruise, riding the stationary bicycle nearly every day, but the vast quantities of food he consumed negated any effects the pedaling might have had.
``I show the realism of how hard it is to get fit,'' he joked, as Swain measured his waist, which had grown an inch in the past month.
But he's not discouraged. ``Three pounds on vacation,'' he mused. That's not bad. I expected more.''
Carolyn Sawyer, mother of three from Virginia Beach, was disappointed with her scale's reading: 185.3 - about 1 1/2 pounds lighter than last month's weigh-in.
``Oh, shoot. Not even 2 pounds,'' she moaned.
``Losing two pounds is better than gaining,'' Swain told her. He's finding it a challenge to get his charges to concentrate on overall fitness improvement, not just weight loss.
``If you're losing some, you're making progress,'' he said.
Not enough to satisfy Sawyer. Especially since she's been exercising regularly, walking, taking aerobic classes. ``There's this black dress I really want to fit into for Christmas. This doesn't make sense,'' she said, staring at the scale. ``I'm walking four and five times a week, three to four miles.''
Her waist measurement didn't make her feel any better. It showed a slight increase over last month's. And her hips were about the same.
``This is not good,'' she said. ``Can I cry now?''
``It's a slow process,'' Swain soothed. He suggested Sawyer try upping her exercise to six or seven hours a week.
His advice for those who plateau, like Sawyer, is to carefully evaluate what they're doing. ``You've got to have a record of how much exercise you're doing, and do more. You'll discover you're not being as consistent as you need to be.
``You also need to take a look at your eating habits. Write down all you're eating for two days and review it. You want to be sure you're avoiding unnecessary snacks and eating a low-fat diet in food choices.''
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
GARY C. KNAPP/Staff
Doing water aerobics three times a week - and changing her eating
habits - helped Dawne Brooks drop more than 7 pounds in a month.
LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff
A weeklong Caribbean cruise three Reggie Towns off course. ``Those
12:30 (a.m.) buffets are a killer,'' he said.
by CNB