Meet Angela Baldo, a SparkPeople.com member (username 4A-HEALTHY-BMI) who lost 186 pounds! Here, Angela shares how she has maintained her healthy weight for almost three years and counting. What is your age? 46 How long have you been a SparkPeople member? How did you find SparkPeople? I joined in the spring of 2009. An at-work wellness program suggested the Nutrition Tracker. What is your favorite feature on SparkPeople? SparkTeams! Specifically, the At Goal & Maintaining + Transition to Maintenance SparkTeam. Although maintainers are a tiny fraction of the entire SparkPeople.com community, we have a tremendous amount to offer, because we have experience with living the dream of every weight loser: KEEPING the weight off. As you may know, only 5-20% of people successfully keep weight off after losing it. In my 20s, I was one of those statistics. I lost over 100 pounds, only to gain it all back--plus almost 100 more. This SparkTeam has really become Maintenance Central--some of the wisest, most generous people I've ever met are involved in it. Between the experience of our long-term maintainers (41+ years!) and our interest in the science behind maintenance, we have developed an excellent, supportive community of mentors. We have a Hall of Fame of maintenance role models, and we acknowledge and celebrate maintenance anniversaries and compete in maintenance-oriented team challenges. We have lively and supportive discussions about how to transition into maintenance mentality, stay motivated and engaged, handle life hurdles, etc. Anyone on a journey to lose weight can benefit from thinking about and planning for maintenance. If you prepare for maintenance, you're more likely to cope well with the particular challenges it presents. One of the reasons I've managed to keep the weight off this time is because I saw how easily I regained before. From the beginning of my weight loss, I wanted to give myself every possible advantage in the struggle to keep it off this time. And so far, with the help of this team, it's working. How much weight have you lost? 186 pounds How long did it take to lose the weight? I lost 160 pounds in a year. Then, over the following two years, I dropped the remaining 26 pounds, bouncing around a bit while I figured out how this maintenance thing was going to work for me. What was your light bulb moment that made you decide to lose weight? At 42, I reached 336 pounds and discovered I was ''super morbidly obese.'' (Yes, that is a real medical term. It means your BMI is over 50.) I suffered from arthritis, and I had trouble walking up and down the stairs. I worried about my future mobility, and I cringed whenever I saw my image as I walked past a store window. What was your biggest obstacle while trying to lose weight? Impatience. As is true for many of us, I can be my own worst enemy! Congratulations on reaching maintenance mode! In your opinion, what is the most challenging part of keeping the weight off? Thank you! I work hard at it, and I'm pleased that I've managed to keep the loss for over two and a half years so far. The mental shift from loss to maintenance is tricky. Although the ''how'' of maintenance looks similar (tracking my food, weighing myself daily, cardio and strength training), the ''why'' is quite different. I was really motivated by watching the scale numbers drop in weight-loss mode, and I've had to come up with maintenance-oriented strategies that work for me. For example, knowing that I'm driven by competition, I developed maintenance challenges for the maintenance SparkTeam. They satisfy the urge to beat a record (I compete against my past performance on such challenges), and provide public accountability. I've also gradually learned how to see my goal range as ''home'' and feel comfortable there. If you could give someone one piece of advice about weight maintenance, what would it be? 1) Frequent monitoring 2) Immediate correction I guess that's actually TWO pieces of advice, but they don't work very well unless you do both of them! What does your weekly exercise schedule look like? For most of the past two years, it was cardio-heavy and looked something like this: M - Tae Kardio at lunchtime, Body Pump class in the evening Tu – Cross-country skiing at lunchtime (if there is snow), Spinning in the evening W - Tae Kardio at lunchtime, Body Pump class in the evening Th - Tae Kardio at lunchtime, Spinning in the evening F- Rest, stretching, sometimes a deep tissue massage Sa - Playing outside (kayaking, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, road cycling, etc.) Su - Playing outside Over the past few months, I've been experimenting with a greater emphasis on lifting heavy and building muscle (using the New Rules of Lifting for Women plan). Recently, my workouts look more like this: M - Lifting weights in the evening Tu - Rest or spinning in the evening W - Lifting weights in the evening Th - Tae Kardio at lunchtime F- Lifting weights in the evening (or rest, if I'm driving to a weekend kayaking destination) Sa - Playing outside (kayaking, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, road cycling, etc.) Su - Playing outside I have an Olympic barbell setup in my basement that I bought on Craigslist, and that's where I do the lifting. So far, I'm quite pleased with the results. I'm getting stronger, I have more definition in my arms and legs, my body fat is slowly dropping, and I am actually spending less time working out!  What is your favorite way to exercise? White water kayaking. It's like the best water slide or roller coaster ride you can imagine, except YOU get to decide where the boat goes! It's a blast! When I started losing the weight, I would have been thrilled to just get under 300 pounds. I never in a million, billion years ever expected to get to 150 pounds and take up extreme sports.As much fun as it is, kayaking is more of a REASON to stay in shape than a WAY to stay in shape. I spend a lot of time driving to and from rivers, and there is a lot of opportunity to make bad food choices. I continue to work on strategies to cope with these factors, and I train during the week so that I can perform on the weekends. Do you have any personal fitness goals coming up? I'm going to spend a couple weeks white water kayaking and trail riding on horses in Argentina and Chile this winter. So I want to be in peak physical condition to have the most fun possible! What does a typical day of food look like for you? How does this compare to the way you ate before your transformation? These days, I'm eating between 1,700-1,800 calories because I'd like to nudge my weight down to the center of my goal range. I've found that I maintain my weight between 2,000 and 2,300 calories, depending on my activity level. By trial and error, I've discovered that I'm most satisfied with about 150g of protein, 40g of fiber, 50g of fat, and less than 100g of sugar. I eat a lot of Greek yogurt, lean protein (buffalo, fish, poultry, soy), green vegetables, nuts, seeds, and protein supplements. When I was over 300 pounds, I would skip meals, didn't pay attention to calories or macronutrients, and ate a lot of starchy carbs. I LOVE pasta, especially paired with fats. I would blow through a whole box of macaroni and cheese (with butter of course), or several Ramen noodle packages. I would bake bread and eat an entire oven-warm loaf in one sitting because it tasted so good. I also liked baked sweet potatoes (with butter and brown sugar), Sara Lee cheesecakes and carrot cakes (I love cream cheese), ice cream, etc. I didn't always eat junk food—sometimes, I'd roast chicken or make corned beef stew. The problem was that I ate TOO MUCH food in general. What is your favorite healthy food? Greek yogurt. It has tons of protein, which helps keep me full and protects these muscles I've worked so hard to build. What is your favorite treat food? Anything dairy. I love full-fat Greek yogurt in small (tracked) amounts, and I love ice cream. I get a kiddie-sized cone once a month at the local Cayuga Lake Creamery where they make it themselves (the waffle cones are made by hand, too!). This ice cream place was my personal secret local gem until the New York Times went and wrote about them in the travel section. Now the lines are out the door. I suppose that's a good thing because the lines help discourage me from going there more than once a month! Who is your biggest inspiration? My biggest inspiration in the SparkPeople community is NELLJONES. She has maintained her weight loss for over 41 years and sticks around here to help those of us navigating the maintenance waters as newbies. She's generous with loads of very sensible advice, born of hard-earned personal experience. As my friend Birdy phrased it, ''Nell is the Real Deal.'' I'm also inspired by all of my other maintenance teammates who share their wisdom and support on a daily basis with me and everyone else fighting in the maintenance trenches with us. In real life, I have dozens of role models who overcame adversity against tremendous odds. Some examples:
When I think about these people and the things they faced, my own struggles seem relatively manageable! Do you have a personal mantra/saying/quote that you live by that you’d like to share? Yup. It's the same thing as I have on my signature: ''Never, Ever, EVER give up!'' For more on Angela's journey, check out her appearance on the Today show. What pointers from Angela can you use in your own journey to healthy living? *Weight loss results will vary from person to person. No individual result should be seen as a typical result of following the SparkPeople program. |
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