WIN THE FAT WAR: A TAPE RECORDER TOOK HER FROM BOTTOM TO TOP

Beth Linden remembers meeting her little daughter’s new friend as if it were yesterday. “She looked at my daughter and said, ‘I didn’t know your mommy was fat,’” the 39-year-old Phoenix resident

It was the worst—and, as it turned out, the best—moment of her life.

Devastated by the remark, Beth—then age 30 and 240 pounds—took out a tape recorder and started talking about how she felt. She stated the date and her height and weight. Then she let loose. Her voice quivering, she described the incident with her daughter’s friend. How she hated putting her daughter in such an awkward situation. How lonely and empty she felt. What it meant and felt like to be so heavy. How the laces hung on the sides of her shoes because she was too fat to bend down to tie them. How embarrassed she was to buy clothes. She said she hated the way she looked. She hated herself.

Calmed by the emotional release, Beth dried her eyes and, with more determination than ever, decided to do something about her weight. She studied the American Heart Association’s nutritional guidelines and memorized the USDA Food Guide Pyramid to learn how to eat more healthfully. She cut back on fatty foods and ate lots of fresh fruits and vegetables when she felt hungry. And she walked for 30 minutes every day—outside when she could, inside on her treadmill when then weather was bad. It took 2 years, but she lost 100 pounds.

Four years later, she needed the tape again. “I had gained 15 pounds, and my eating habits were terrible,” she says. “When I played the tape, I could hear the rain outside and the desperation in my voice. I was only 34 years old, and I didn’t want to go back.” It immediately turned her around.

Now Beth plays the same tape every year around October 1 to gear herself up for the holidays. This autumn ritual and the stinging remembrance of a little girl’s remark have helped to kept her weight under 150 pounds for more than 5 years.

WINNING ACTION

Use your low point for inspiration. In a journal, on a tape recorder, or just on a piece of paper, make a record of exactly why you want to lose weight at that low moment. Describe in detail how you feel and what you want to change. Read it over or listen to it when you’re tempted to fall off the weight-loss wagon. And, like Beth, hang on to it for the future, as a reminder of how far you’ve come. (I still have a few fat drawings that I made of myself more than 10 years ago!)

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