Weight Loss Secrets | How To Lose Weight | Secrets Revealed By Top Selling Author
Author to share her weight loss secrets
By Nanci Bompey
For Pamela Anderson, the real secret behind her weight loss wasn’t learning to eat right or exercise more.
It was learning to love herself.
“I think a lot of people need to start there,”Ms. Anderson said. “Do I really love myself and if not, why, and how can I start doing that?”
It was this realization that helped the cookbook author and food writer finally decide to take control of her life, and with it, her weight, more than five years ago.
After decades of juggling demanding jobs, a marriage and motherhood, Anderson decided she needed to focus on her herself and her nearly 200-pound body.
“I carried too much weight in the family,” she said. “I needed the physical heft to carry the emotional weight that I was carrying around.”
Working on her interior helped Anderson to eventually work on her exterior. After changing the way she ate and adding running to her daily routine, Anderson lost 42 pounds over eight months.
Ms. Anderson’s journey from a yo-yo dieter to a marathon runner is chronicled in her newest cookbook, “The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight & Eating Great,” and her story will be shared with hundreds of Asheville residents Thursday at a sold-out event at Biltmore Estate.
Anderson’s visit, sponsored by the Asheville Citizen-Times, also includes a private culinary workshop and a shopping tour at a local supermarket. All three events are intended to kick off this year’s Lighten Up 4 Life weight-loss competition.
“She has a story to tell that fits with so many participants in Lighten Up 4 Life,” said Mission Hospitals’ Becky Brown, who is organizing this year’s challenge. “I think hearing that from someone who has been there will make a big difference.”
Ms. Anderson said she was never heavy growing up but started to put on weight after she got married and had her two daughters. As a cookbook author and food writer, it was also her job to eat.
Anderson said she tried many diets, everything from the Scarsdale Diet to the Cabbage Soup Diet, but would always gain the weight back. Eventually, she just stopped dieting.
“I just sort of gave up because I realized that diets didn’t work, but I didn’t know yet how to change my life,” she said.
Ms. Anderson said her desire to change first came in the winter of 2002, when she saw herself in a mirror during an exercise class, but it took her more than a year to finally do something about it.
“You don’t simply tweak a few things. It’s bigger than that,” Anderson said. “It starts with going inside of yourself and asking yourself the major questions, like ‘Why am I eating?’”
After sending her youngest daughter off to college and moving from Pennsylvania to Connecticut with her husband, Anderson finally decided she was ready to take control of her life and her weight.
“Obviously, when you get to that point and your children don’t have that focus anymore, you are able to focus on yourself, which a lot of people don’t want to do,” she said. “Change is not fun and a lot of people would as soon not deal with it.”
But Anderson dealt with it, first by facing her weight during a doctor’s appointment, and then by facing herself during visits to a therapist, sessions that eventually led her to address her size.
After she dealt with her emotional issues, Anderson said she started feeling good about herself and it became easier to focus on losing weight.
“The weight loss piece of it was not easy, but it was relatively simple,” she said. “It’s never easy, but I had determination and I cared for myself enough to do it.”
Ms. Anderson knew that she wouldn’t lose weight by going on a diet, but that she needed to make a change to her eating habits that she could stick to for life.
So, Anderson came up with her own personalized eating plan that included not only three meals a day, but also afternoon tea and a pre-dinner snack and glass of wine.
There were no restrictions on what she could or couldn’t eat, but Anderson tried to allot herself a certain number of calories per day, taking many of her favorite meals, like pizza and pasta, and making them healthier by substituting healthier ingredients or trying out new cooking techniques.
But perhaps the biggest change in Anderson’s life was adding a daily exercise routine. She started slowly, walking briskly for a couple of miles in the morning and the evening, and gradually worked her way up to running two times a day.
Today, Anderson runs three-four days a week and has added two days of yoga a week. She has completed six marathons and plans to keep going, entering a race in Jacksonville, Fla., next month.
Although Anderson said running may not be the exercise answer for everyone, she said she loves putting on her mp3 player and going out running, not only enabling her to spend time alone but also celebrating her new self.
“You just feel so empowered,” she said.
Anderson said her latest book, which details her weight loss story, is part self-help book and part cookbook. While there are the markings of a traditional cookbook, Anderson also includes her story along with many tips and stories to accompany the recipes, which all include a calorie count.
“I think it was kind of important to share with people what really worked,” she said. “If you are not willing to share what worked for you, how are people supposed to see an aspect of their lives in your life?”
But rather than being a diet book, or the “Pam Anderson” prescription for weight loss, Anderson said the book is about encouraging people to go on their own journey, both emotionally and physically.
“I think a lot of people feel alone in what they are going through,” Anderson said. “But, I’ve lived that life. I know how difficult it is.”
Kristen Weaver, director of wellness advancement at the YMCA, said not only does Anderson provide people with ideas on how to make foods healthier, but her visit to Asheville will also help those who are working to make the city healthier.
Weaver hopes Anderson’s visit will begin an ongoing relationship between the city and the author. Anderson said she may come back to town to run in the Citizen-Times Half-Marathon in the fall.
“Bringing Pam Anderson in shows our community that we are open to bringing in experts in the field so we can learn from them,” Weaver said.
Ms. Anderson said she enjoys going around the country telling her story, which resonates with a lot of women who are in a similar situation as she is, trying to juggle a career and a family.
“You just never know what is going to trigger something for people,” she said. “When that something is going to hit them … When I am out there I hope I can relate and be an inspiration to as many people as possible.”
Source:
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009901040350
