When Adrienne Sussman’s sister-in-law lost weight, it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. “I had always been thinner and fitter than she was,” explains the 52-year-old mom from Silver Spring, Maryland. “Now, she looked better than me.”
Envious of her sister-in-law’s success, Adrienne was determined to get back her former shapely figure. A svelte 103 pounds for most of her life, she began to gain after giving birth to her son in 1984. Once he started nursery school at age 2, Adrienne turned to food to make her feel better. “I missed my son so much and felt so guilty for sending him to school that I started eating just to calm my nerves,” she recalls. “I went to the bakery every day to buy a pastry for myself, one for my husband, and one for my son, Then, I’d eat all three.”
Within a year and a half, Adrienne’s weight rose to 139 pounds.”At that point, my self-esteem had hit rock bottom,” she explains. “I looked in the mirror, and I really didn’t like what I saw.” Ironically, that mirror would later become a critical component of Adrienne’s I ^ weight-loss program.
Determined to get rid of her excess baggage, Adrienne signed up for Weight Watchers. “My sister-in-law had joined, and I figured that if she could do it, I could do it,” she explains. But it wasn’t easy at first. “I didn’t want to go to the weekly meetings, because I felt really self-conscious,” she says. “So I wrote ‘doctor’s appointment’ on my calendar to fool myself into attending.” Eventually, she started looking forward to the meetings, where she learned to use a combination of portion control, exercise, and behavior modification to slim down.
To monitor her progress, every couple of weeks she’d stand in front of the mirror completely naked and do a head-to-toe body check. Over the course of a few months, she saw her body changing. That’s what kept her motivated. “I stopped looking in the mirror and telling myself that I was destined to be overweight forever,” she says. “I accepted that whatever was broken, I had the power to fix.”
With this new, positive attitude, Adrienne was able to shed 30 pounds. She has maintained her weight at a healthy 109 pounds for 8 years.
These days, Adrienne serves as a program leader for Weight Watchers. She constandy reminds people in her group to stop obsessing about the number on the scale. “The most important questions you should ask yourself are, Are you happy with what you look like? Do you like the way you perceive yourself? And do you like the way you carry yourself?’ she says. “It’s what you think when you look in the mirror—not the number on the scale—that matters.”
WINNING ACTION
Let your mirror be your friend. Self-acceptance—even when you’re naked—is an important first step of any weight-loss program. Once you feel comfortable with yourself, you’ll have the confidence and patience to achieve lasting weight-loss success. Try the same strategy that worked for Adrienne: Every 2 weeks or so, take off your clothes and stand in front of a mirror completely nude. At first, you may not like what you see. But find one part that you do like, even if it’s your elbows! Over time, as your body changes, you’ll find more to like, and you’ll continue your weight-loss efforts.
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