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Lesa's Story, March 2007

My name is Lesa, and in 2005 I weighed 398 pounds. I couldn’t handle the weight any longer. My body was shutting down and breaking down. I knew I needed to exercise and change my eating habits. Although I ate very little sweets, I drank a lot of soda and ate a ton of salt.

I started to exercise at the wellness center. I went only three days a week. I would swim every day that I went for at least one hour. One day I’d do the treadmill and bikes, the next time I’d do abs and biceps. No matter what exercise I had done that day, I always swam. I only worked out for 15 minutes before swimming.

I also had to cut out a lot of the junk and salty foods. I switched out soda for Propel waters. I drank milk and V8 juice. I threw out the chips and replaced them with jerky, carrots and apples. I only had a piece of cake or ice cream and candy one day a week in small portions.

I was also on 12 different medicines for different things. I was always getting kidney infections and was hospitalized three times in two months because of my weight. The excess weight I was carrying on me wouldn’t let my body heal itself, or fight any infections whatsoever.

It was only a couple of weeks and I noticed I was already losing weight. I couldn’t believe it. In fact, I went to three different scales at three different places to be sure.

I really didn’t exercise hard. Heck, swimming was easy. I really didn’t miss the junk food. In fact, after two weeks, my body craved the water and food changes. In seven months I went from 398 pounds to 260 pounds. I lost a total of 138 pounds. All it took was 1 hour and 15 minutes three days a week and a small eating change.

Losing weight feels great, but your health change is great. I no longer get kidney infections and I haven’t been in or to the hospital since I dropped 138 pounds. Nor do I get colds as easy. I also went from having to take 12 different medications a day to three a day now.

This weight loss also helped my diabetes. I was headed for insulin, but due to the weight loss, I’m only on a 2.5 milligram pill once a day.

I’m writing this in hopes that it can help someone else.

Tell Us Your Story!

Healthy Utah invites you to share your wellness success story. By doing so, we are able to educate our members of the importance of making healthy changes for life. They will be a resource and inspiration to help others improve their health. Download a Success Story Form (Word document).