TERRE HAUTE — When Barbara Tedrow went to Providence Medical Group, it was do or die — literally.
Barbara, 43, of Rosedale weighed 298 pounds when she walked into Dr. Rao Ivaturi’s office in June 2007. She now weighs 195 pounds.
Having lost her 37-year-old sister, Kay Jesse, who weighed 450 pounds in 1997, to congestive heart failure, Barbara said she saw a similar fate for herself. She said she wanted to do something so that she would be around to help raise her 31/2-year-old twins, Courtney and Hunter.
“Having twins, you want to be here and make sure you’re still around,” she said, “so if you can’t breathe, you can’t even chase the kids to do anything,”
Keeping up with twins is hard enough, but add the fact that Hunter has severe autism, and it’s harder, she said.
Her sister’s children were 13 and 15 when their mother died, and the family helped raise them, Barbara said. Her sister also had diabetes and now, her two brothers are following the same path.
“They’re all getting the problems that I was going to have,” Barbara said.
She said they weren’t always big, but for some reason as they approached their mid-20s, they all gained weight.
When she went to the doctor, Barbara said she didn’t have any serious issues yet, but she was close. She, like others, was considering dieting and lifestyle changes, and sought the advice of her doctor.
With her weight now at 195 pounds, Barbara has been declared “medically safe” by her doctor, but she said she still wants to lose an additional 20 pounds so that she won’t be in the overweight category.
For her height and weight, she should be between 170 and 190 pounds.
“I want to lose that weight for me because I don’t want to be overweight at all,” Barbara said, noting she had been categorized before at class-4 obesity.
One step at a time
Though Barbara liked exercising, she couldn’t handle 10 minutes on the treadmill when she started her workout routine.
“If I even bent down to tie my shoe, I couldn’t even breathe,” she said. “It was that bad.”
Eating only one meal a day before, Barbara said she couldn’t understand why she was still gaining weight. Her doctor explained that her body was storing the fat because it knew she wasn’t going to eat again for another 24 hours.
Everything she eats now is part of a balanced meal, she said. She tries to stick to 1,200 calories a day, including at least 64 ounces of water.
“I have to have everything on the food group, that way your blood sugar stays normal and you’re getting everything your body needs,” Barbara said, “and it can let go of all the fat it doesn’t think you need anymore.”
Her doctor said if 80 percent of what Barbara eats is healthy, she’ll be OK, and is allowed to eat fast-food, but not more than once every two weeks, she said.
“Most people’s plate is one color,” she said, noting that it’s supposed to look like a color wheel to know you’ve done it right.
Aside from changing her eating habits, Barbara exercises 30 to 60 minutes a day, six days a week in her workout room that has an elliptical machine, treadmill, bike and a Bowflex tread climber. She rotates use of the equipment each day to fend off boredom.
“Right now, I cheat, but I exercise so I keep it off, she said. “If I keep my meals consistent and eat a piece of candy here or there, it doesn’t hurt me.”
To stay on top of things, Barbara said she makes sure she weighs herself every day, too.
She also has stopped rewarding herself with food and instead uses the money she would have spent on food to go shopping, Barbara said. She plans to donate all her large clothes after Christmas.
Christen Hayes, an administrative assistant at Providence who worked with Barbara, advises that people trying to lose weight should not try to take off the pounds too quickly. It’s healthy to lose between one and two pounds a week or about five pounds a month, she said.
Don’t do any crash or fad diets, Hayes said, but stick to a balanced meal and eat less more often.
Just as Barbara did, set short-term goals and focus on those. Barbara said without the short-term goals, she would have dwelled on the 100 pounds and not stuck to the program.
Watching Barbara go through the program was inspiring, Hayes said.
“When Barbara hit her 100-pound mark, the doctor called in a couple of people to talk to her and congratulate her and everything,” Hayes said, “and seeing how happy she was and how proud of herself she was, was amazing.”
Forgiveness
Other diets Barbara tried in the past included low-carb and eating one meal a day, she said, which allowed her to lose some weight, but it came back quickly if she fell off the wagon.
“Every time I would gain some weight back, I would get mad at myself and just say ‘screw it,’ and eat anything and everything,” she said, which would make her gain back more than what she had lost.
“The main thing that people need to know is everybody cheats,” Barbara said. “I cheated a lot during this year and a half or whatever, … if I cheat, I say ‘all right, that’s one meal. Do I want to gain 50 pounds back or forgive myself and go on?’”
Barbara said most people can’t forgive themselves, but forgiving herself is one of the main reasons why she’s been able to lose the weight and keep it off.
One trick Barbara uses is to allow herself to eat one meal that she really wants every two weeks, regardless of its health value. She marks that day on the calendar and eats her breakfast and lunch as usual, but changes her dinner, she said.
Watching shows such as “The Biggest Loser” helped in her weight-loss journey. As she watched “regular people” lose weight, she said it proved to her more and more that she could do it, too.
People need to remember to forgive themselves, Barbara said, especially as they start to think about their New Year’s resolutions, which may include losing weight.
“You’ve got to keep sticking with it,” she said. “…The main thing is you just don’t quit.”
Also, as rule, she doesn’t allow junk food in the house. Portion control is also important, she said.
When she goes to the store and sees overweight people in the mobile chairs, Barbara said she thinks about how that could have been her. She also wants to help those people, which is what led her to tell her story to the Tribune-Star.
“I want to hand them my diet and tell them I was there, I can save you, help you,” she said. … “If I could save one person…”
“Together we conquer”
The support of her partner of 14 years, Emily Tedrow, has been instrumental in Barbara becoming healthier, she says.
In addition to preparing healthy meals, Emily also bought Barbara an inspirational sweatshirt that shows two people on top of a mountain holding their hands up with the phrase, “Together we conquer,” written on it.
“[Barbara] did a great job,” Emily said with pride. “It’s a feat most people can’t accomplish.”
Until she went to the doctor, Barbara said she had only eaten one vegetable in her life, which was one of the hardest things about the process.
In the beginning, she gagged when she ate the vegetables, she said. Though she still doesn’t like vegetables, she eats them because she knows her body needs the nutrients, Barbara said.
“I don’t like vegetables, but I like me,” she said. “I don’t want to die.”
That’s something she tells herself every time she eats vegetables, she said.
Regardless if she likes them or not, vegetables are an important part of anyone’s diet, Hayes said. She said she remembered Dr. Ivaturi telling Barbara to blend them if she had to, as long as she was eating them.
“If I live to be 80, I’ll never like vegetables,” Barbara said.
Healthy eating is also something Barbara and Emily are teaching the twins as they give them fruit for snacks and don’t give them candy, Barbara said.
“We eat healthier now, and plan for our future,” Emily said.
Giving up pizza and ice cream were hard, but now one of Barbara’s favorite healthy meals is a Cornish hen dish Emily prepares with carrots, potatoes, mushrooms and gravy, she said.
When Barbara drops her last 20 pounds, the family plans to vacation at Disney World, a place Barbara has never visited. There are even pictures of Emily and the children along with a map of Disney’s Animal Kingdom park taped to the wall of her workout room — as motivation.
Crystal Garcia can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or crystal.garcia@tribstar.com.
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