MOVE! is a national VA program designed to help veterans lose weight, keep it off and improve their health.
Here is an employee who has lost more than 100 pounds telling her story…
MaryJo I mean the whole family is fat, I was always the runt because I was short my sister is four years younger than me
MaryJo she weights so much now she has a rider on her life insurance policy but I used to say I had hand me ups
MaryJo because mom would take side seams in her chubby shorts and stuff
MaryJo to cut them down so I could wear them so I wore hand me ups she was four years younger than me
MaryJo but she was always bigger than me so I was wearing her clothes.
MaryJo Do you know how devastating that was that was not cool because I was four years older.
Sandra You know wearing little sister’s clothes.
MaryJo And my mom could never see that, mom was big, my aunt was big, my grandmother was big, my sister was big.
MaryJo When I was in my 20’s I got to my goal weight. When I was in my 40s I was close to 40 I thought I have to be 40 I don’t have to be fat.
MaryJo I went to Weight Watchers, I got to my goal weight and I did that and then I made some bad choices and gained the weight back on,
MaryJo put the weight back on and you know when I turned 60 I had the open heart surgery and I gained 30 plus pounds and I thought I’ve got to do something to move.
MaryJo Do you know what a side tier is? When you tie your shoes and the bow is in the middle, you know I thought ok,
MaryJo I don’t want to be a side tier the rest of my life so now I can cross my legs. That reminds me of what got me motivated.
MaryJo I got the email from the lady friend at church, saying I’m doing this weight loss program and then I saw a picture that my daughter-in-law had taken of me holding my new grandson,
MaryJo he was out on my knees. I had no lap, he was out on my knees. I mean it was bust, belly and he’s on my knees and this is not what I want him to remember.
MaryJo And I want to be there, I want to be there, I want to dance at his wedding.
MaryJo So I did the weight loss thing and I’m looking back at my, I started buying clothes and I was buying size 14’s
MaryJo and I’m looking back later and I have 14’s in my closet with the tags still hanging on it why was I buying size 14’s.
MaryJo I don’t think I thought I could do it and I actually cook but I’ve gotten on these complex carbohydrates.
MaryJo I use sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. All the substitutions, I’ve got this Greek yogurt, which is great, there is one brand that is only one point
MaryJo and I buy the unflavored and I sweeten it with Splenda or Stevia . And I wanted to talk about the exercise.
MaryJo I did Curves and I got kind of bored with Curves, you do the machines and they are fine and I got in to Zumba, we were doing Zumba a couple of times a week.
MaryJo Zumba is Latin dancing. I learned how to Cumbia and Salsa and do all these things, and its exercise.
MaryJo You are working out, you are working hard you are going to be out of breath, you are going to drink that whole bottle of water during your workout.
MaryJo I bought a Wii and I bought Zumba for the Wii so you can do 20 minute workout or 45 minutes and you can do it on different levels.
MaryJo And I was doing Jazzercise for awhile which is wonderful, they will work your butt off at Jazzercise
MaryJo but they have resistance bands which is had never done before and that will get you going its hard.
MaryJo And they had the big balls. I forgot what they call them, it looks like a beach ball, balance ball, no it’s not heavy it’s just big, that helped a lot.
MaryJo But when I was doing that and I got Plantar fasciitis in my heal and I couldn’t walk on it.
MaryJo I couldn’t be pounding on it doing this running up and down the room thing so I got on the internet and I looked for chair exercises.
MaryJo One of the Weight Watchers members had her leg in a cast and she couldn’t do her physical, she couldn’t walk and stuff
MaryJo and she said she looked up chair exercises, there are chair exercises. You can do them sitting down,
MaryJo you can do the resistance bands sitting down so get on the internet and look for chair workouts to do some minimal stuff before you get moving.
MaryJo The other things I do to move, I try to move every single day when I got my car repainted, so you know where I parked my car now,
MaryJo way out in the boondocks and I get some exercise because I don’t want anybody else parking next to me, I take two spaces,
MaryJo or I take four spaces because I don’t, it irritates me when I come out and there is a great big pick-up sitting by my newly painted car.
MaryJo Anyway, so I hike in there and part of hiking in there you got to have good bags and stuff to carry,
MaryJo you take your recyclable bags because I’m not going to haul a cart back in again. And when I go to Sams I walk for thirty minutes when I first get in there.
MaryJo I tie my coat around my waist or whatever, and I walk and the trick to walking is to walk around the perimeter.
MaryJo There is no food demos around the perimeter. So I check out the mattresses, and the paper towels and the diapers
MaryJo and I make a U turn around produce because I’m checking out what I am going to buy and I avoid those demos and go back around.
MaryJo So I walk thirty minutes, and I have tried walking Wal-Mart, somebody said their daughter does the same thing at Wal-Mart.
MaryJo You can do it at Wal-Mart but walking through the toys is a challenge but you can do the perimeter of Wal-Mart for thirty minutes
MaryJo or whatever before you do your shopping so that is one my things of walking. So I do something and this is my friend, my pedometer.
MaryJo I try to do 10, you need 10,000 steps a day for weight loss. I usually will do 5,000 just part of my job and daily living
MaryJo but I’ve got to do usually over, about 4,000 to do a routine, a Zumba routine at home or whatever I do.
MaryJo I’m still delaying it, I was down to just a few pounds and then the holidays hit and I did, I do good on the holiday.
MaryJo I counted, I measured, I planned, I tracked, I wrote it down, I did perfect but you know what happens the next day?
MaryJo It’s still in the refrigerator, there is still some left. My younger son he said mom, now that you have gotten down, have you lost your taste for sweets.
MaryJo Oh no, no, nope that will never go away, I only have to resist the first bite and I have found I cannot take, I can’t portion control,
MaryJo I can take my bag of chips and I count my 17 chips and put it in a bag and write on it with a Sharpie how many points and that will be the end of the portion control
MaryJo that next time that bag is open, I’m tired, I’ve got a sandwich I’m going to go watch what I recorded, if that bag goes with me I’m eating to the bottom of the bag.
MaryJo It does not matter so for me it’s portion control. I have to buy in small whatever if I’m going to have to have something
MaryJo I buy one of them not a whole package. So these are my scrub pants and I didn’t save anything as soon as they got too big they went to resale.
MaryJo What’s the best thing about losing weight, and I said I can buy off the rack and we got off the air and I said Steve do you know what that means to buy off the rack
MaryJo and he said no, he didn’t have a clue I said when your five feet tall and your trying to make a 24 fit, your taking tucks,
MaryJo moving a button, adding elastic, rolling it up, hemming it up. I would not go shopping. I would not look in a mirror,
MaryJo and you were not taking my picture, that I mean didn’t even happen. My self esteem was way down there
MaryJo so when I started losing weight my self esteem soared and do you know what happened, I turned into a Diva, I didn’t know this was going to happen.
MaryJo MOVE! features a personalized program of nutrition, physical activity and behavior change. Veterans and VA Employees may join the MOVE Program. For more information please visit the website: www.move.va.gov