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Losing it
Some Southern Marylanders are working hard to get smaller
Friday, June 18, 2010
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL
Kelly Imhof at a gym in California
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Kelly Imhof's goal was to weigh less than her husband.
Though she never was medically warned to lose weight, she also knew she never was "genetically predisposed to skinny."
"I'm like a yo-yo," said Imhof, a 5-foot-tall Great Mills resident who said she weighed in the 130s throughout high school and into college, but crept into the 160s when she was in her 20s.
After having her first child at 26, Imhof was motivated to get back into shape.
"And I was in a lot better shape than [when] I was in high school," said Imhof, 37.
And then the yo-yo process started up again.
Two more children later, Imhof weighed in the 190s throughout much of 2009.
"I got up to 190 pounds and I didn't even realize it was happening," she said, continuing that she finally noticed how much weight she had gained when she looked at pictures from a trip to Cancun, Mexico, last May.
"I didn't like any of the pictures," sighed Imhof, adding that even though she knew she was overweight, she wore a bathing suit regardless.
"I figured I was in a country where no one would ever see me again," she laughed. "And my friends are non-judgmental; they've never made me feel bad one way or the other."
Imhof couldn't think of one particular reason why she gained weight. She didn't completely let herself go, she said. She just got a little lazy.
"I just got tired and worn out and it kind of makes you depressed," said Imhof, who was taking care of her children — ages 4 through 11 — by day, and coaching gymnastics at night.
"It's all or nothing for me. I can't just eat right, I can't just exercise. It has to be a balanced combination," she said.
Though Imhof never binged or ate outrageously unhealthy foods, she did admit to having a weakness for "frou-frou coffee drinks," particularly one coffee shop's "frappuccinos" with whipped cream.
"You don't realize that's 500 calories. That's a whole meal on a 1,200-calorie day," Imhof said, adding that while her individual meals were pretty healthy, she was accustomed to frequent snacking.
Last September, when Imhof's kids were going back to school, she decided it was time to get back on track.
"I didn't want to be the fat gymnastics coach anymore," said Imhof, who joined a gym in California, Md., last September, and started going regularly last November.
Her 4-year-old son, Peter, had initially been fussy about being in the gym's day care center while his mom worked out. "And I used that as my excuse for two years," Imhof said, adding that she now plans special afternoon outings with Peter to make it up to him.
Imhof now works out at the gym about five days a week, doing some type of cardio — running, aerobics or spinning classes — 45 minutes with a personal trainer and some weight training "here and there."
This April, Imhof was the winner in the gym's "Biggest Loser" contest for losing 11 percent of her body weight in eight weeks.
Being an "all-or-nothing" weight loser, Imhof also has started writing down everything she takes in, even her favorite coffee drink, which she has not given up. "Now if I want a frappuccino, I have a frappuccino, but I write it down and I run a little farther," she said.
What Imhof has given up is soda and most alcoholic beverages. "I don't really drink a lot of alcohol, partly just because I just don't really drink alcohol and partly because it's full of sugar," said Imhof, who frequently is asked if she takes weight loss pills or diet supplements. She does not.
"I think people find it hard to believe that you can do it just by modifying your food and exercise," she said.
For Imhof, who eats out about once a week, breakfast is usually a protein shake and fruit, or egg whites and fruit, or oatmeal. Lunch is tuna salad with light mayonnaise and wheat crackers, or grilled chicken with spinach on a whole wheat wrap, or "some type of fully loaded salad with lots of vegetables but also cheese and nuts." Dinner is a meat, a carbohydrate and a salad or vegetable.
For her sweet tooth, she has a small amount of dark chocolate every day. "And I drink lots of skim milk; skim milk and water are probably all I drink," she said.
Now weighing in the 140s, Imhof still has goals. One is an upcoming trip to Jamaica for her 15th wedding anniversary, for which she hopes to weigh 135 pounds. "I have ‘Jamaica' written down on everything," she laughed.
Standing up to genetics
It took the loss of a parent to make Stephanie Moten of Waldorf realize she needed to lose weight.
Before her father, Michael, died of kidney disease and diabetes in March 2009, Moten described her eating habits as "not the best."
Moten, who is 25 years old and stands 5-4, frequently ate out, indulged in junk food and snacked late at night and went to bed right after.
Throughout 2008 she weighed 220 pounds.
She said her less-than-healthy lifestyle started in her teens. "I wasn't really active in school or anything like that," Moten said, continuing that she munched on fattening, over-processed food because "it was easier and it did taste good."
At restaurants — Olive Garden, Ruby Tuesday and any kind of Mexican being particular favorites — Moten said her downfall was "eating all my food and not stopping when I'm full."
In addition to her eating habits, Moten said exercise never had been a part of her life. "To be honest, I didn't really exercise growing up. … I'm not sure why, maybe laziness," Moten said.
When her father died, Moten said she knew she had to start seriously considering her family's history of diabetes and the fact that her doctor told her it would be a good idea to start losing some weight.
"I looked at myself and said I need to get healthier and that's when I really started living a healthier life," Moten said.
She had joined a gym in Waldorf in November 2008 but didn't start attending regularly until April 2009, shortly after her father died. Moten, who works full-time as a dental assistant in Alexandria, Va., now goes three to four days a week and does mostly cardio.
"If I don't make it in the evening, I try to go early in the morning, like 4 a.m.," Moten said, continuing that while it's hard to get out of bed at that hour, "It kind of gives you more energy."
Moten also used a dietary supplement in early 2010, which she said sped up metabolism when combined with healthy eating and exercise. She said that while the supplement worked well and had no side effects, she stopped taking it after a few months.
"I figured if I was going to the gym and eating healthy foods, I can keep losing the weight on my own. I didn't want my body getting used to that type of stuff," she said.
Since February, Moten has tightly adjusted her diet to a protein shake for breakfast; a salad with grilled chicken for lunch; a vegetable, a potato or brown rice and chicken or salmon for dinner; and gelatin or yogurt for a snack.
"I am happier. … I do go out to eat but not as often as I did back then. I'm also learning to eat a smaller portion as well," Moten said. "When I get full, I stop instead of stuffing myself and I take the rest home with me."
Now at 180 pounds, Moten said she has a goal of 150 but no set time by which to get there. Going from a size 16 to a size 12, she said, has an added bonus. "When I notice my clothes are looser on me, I can go shopping more," Moten smiled.
Breaking the fad diet cycle
A bad day for Heather Hurd of Lusby meant a really good — and large — dinner at its conclusion. As a self-admitted "emotional eater," Hurd said, "I stress eat, I depress eat, I bored eat."
As a "totally normal-sized" pre-teen, Hurd, now 30, said her mother was always on diets.
"That was when I started thinking, ‘Maybe I need to diet,'" said Hurd, who added that throughout high school she "made a big show" of saying she was on a diet and ate salads for lunch in front of her friends, but ate Pop-Tarts for breakfast.
In college, despite not being a big partier, Hurd said she gained even more than the stereotypical "freshman 15," with fried food and frequent snacking and napping.
"I was eating really bad: cheese fries, lots of fried food, [takeout] Chinese food and lots of soda," Hurd said. "I was eating tons of calories and not exercising at all."
Hurd, who stands 5-5, said that these lifestyle habits lasted about five years to the point where she weighed 200 pounds. From that point on, Hurd said she attempted "every fad diet out there."
"I kept trying to do things that were easy — that magic pill concept," Hurd said, continuing, "I'd lose a couple pounds and gain it all back, and then some."
From the time she was 22 years old to this January, Hurd said she always would go back and forth from losing a little weight to then weighing 200 pounds or more, again.
Her biggest weight-loss success, before recently, was when she lost 50 pounds before her wedding, which was two years after she graduated from college.
"I was a size 10 wedding dress and for me, that was very small," said Hurd, who confessed that she quickly gained the weight back with all of the gift certificates to restaurants she received for wedding presents.
"I went through many phases when I thought, ‘Maybe I'm just meant to be overweight. Maybe I'm just that fat girl,'" Hurd said.
In December 2008, just when she had signed up for the Couch-to-5K Running Plan for beginners, Hurd learned she was pregnant and was eventually put on bed rest for five months. "I could get up to go to the bathroom and that was it," said Hurd, who laughed that with her husband managing the household, "we ate lots of frozen chicken nuggets."
When her daughter, Evi, was born, Hurd said weight loss went to the back burner because "on top of having a newborn, I was also getting used to standing up again."
Hurd said that all changed when her mother e-mailed her pictures from Christmas of 2009. "I was horrified. … I begged my mom not to post them anywhere," Hurd said, continuing that after seeing the photos, "I was like ‘OK, that's it, I'm done, no more.'"
She completely overhauled her kitchen with fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lower-calorie, frozen entrees. Hurd also said she picked back up with the Couch-to-5K program and started exercising slowly but surely, with only five minutes of exercise for one day during Week One.
Hurd eventually built up this exercise regimen to the point where she exercises about five days a week doing a combination of running, stroller walks with her daughter and working out to an exercise program on TV.
Hurd also blogs about her weight-loss process on the website skinnysushi.com.
As far as her eating habits go, Hurd said, "It's the same thing that most people eat, but we make little substitutions."
These changes might include ground turkey instead of ground beef, reduced-fat cheese and skim milk for dairy products, cooking spread instead of oil and baking things, like fish sticks, that otherwise would be fried, Hurd said.
She also said she snacks on fresh fruit and microwaved frozen vegetables with lemon juice squirted on top, with her daughter.
Hurd, who has lost about 30 pounds since last Christmas when she weighed 225 pounds, is hoping to run the Race to Cure Childhood Cancer 5K in College Park this September.
"I have 1,000 times more energy," said Hurd, who admitted she still makes some food choices "that I probably shouldn't," but added these splurges usually hurt her stomach because her body has become accustomed to healthy eating.
"If you had told me a couple of months ago that I would have registered for a 5K, I would have died laughing," Hurd said. "Now I have really crazy visions of running a half-marathon."
