Diet and exercise important, but experts say mindset also key to shedding pounds

HALIFAX – The stark realization came in a Halifax hospital room, where doctors told Belinda Ferguson that her obesity was likely the reason she had suffered a miscarriage.

In between the confusion and shock, an unsettling question echoed in the then 26-year-old’s head: if I can’t support the life of an unborn child, how can I support my own?

“That was my wake-up call,” says Ferguson, now 47. “It was like, OK, my weight can actually kill somebody else, maybe I should listen to them telling me that it could kill me.”

Ferguson, who already had a one-year-old son, resolved at that moment to lose the weight for good. Weighing more than 250 pounds, she figured it would be her last chance.

“It was the most important thing, deciding that it was a priority to do this right,” says Ferguson, who shed more than 100 pounds from her five-foot-two frame in a year after undergoing gastroplasty, commonly known as stomach stapling, in 1991.

Though it doesn’t always take a medical scare, health experts say people looking to lose weight – and keep it off – have to be fully ready for a lifelong change if they want to be successful.

Beyond changing habits, approaching weight loss with a determined and realistic mindset is “critical,” says Michael Vallis, a Halifax-based health psychologist who specializes in obesity.

“Behaviour can change,” he says. “But if you’re going to sustain behaviour, you need to have your head around it because that’s ultimately what you will have to take forward with you.”

Ferguson says her eating habits started getting out of whack as a child. It was a poor relationship that involved secretly snacking on treats away from the watchful eye of her mother, who Ferguson says had an eating disorder and was preoccupied with the scale.

Her weight fluctuated during her teenage years. As she entered adulthood, Ferguson tried to stay active by taking dance classes several times a week.

But working in a pastry shop and eating fast food took its toll on her physique. There were also bouts of illness, including a mild stroke at the age of 21 that led to a hiatus in dancing. The weight, meanwhile, kept piling on.

Ferguson says she made repeated attempts to lose weight over the years – everything from crash diets to special shakes to pre-packaged, perfectly portioned food. But the disappearing pounds always found their way back home.

After her miscarriage, she made the decision to have surgery.

“I knew at that point that I needed help, that there was no way – unless I was to go live at a monastery where there was only lettuce – that I was going to be able to do it on my own,” she says.

Gastroplasty involves using a band and staples to create a small stomach pouch that limits portion sizes and helps patients feel fuller, longer.

Ferguson says she remained determined and focused after the procedure, staying on a restrictive liquid diet for six weeks while she healed. When her birthday came, there was no cake. Instead, she celebrated with a small glass of chocolate milk and a floating candle.

The weight melted off quickly. After a year, Ferguson was weighing in at 125 pounds.

But Vallis says it’s important for people to realize there’s no healthy way to lose that much weight, that fast, without surgery.

For someone looking to lose 100 pounds or more, he recommends they start by losing 10 per cent of their weight through calorie restriction and physical activity in no less than four months. That should be followed by maintenance for at least another six months before starting up the process again.

Vallis suggests 10 per cent increments for people with less to lose, too.

Deanne Ortman, a clinical dietitian in Halifax specializing in obesity, says it’s also important for people to understand that the cause of obesity is more complex than a lack of willpower.

There are other factors, including metabolic, genetic and cultural aspects, that can also affect the number on the scale.

“Too often individuals get frustrated or disappointed when they don’t reach their weight loss goal and they feel it’s something they’ve done wrong,” says Ortman.

Both she and Vallis say it can be difficult to convince people to set realistic goals and take it slow when reality TV shows feature contestants losing more than a dozen pounds a week.

“I think (those shows) fit into a cultural attitude that’s really negative for us, which is a go-big-or-go-home kind of attitude,” says Vallis.

The trouble, he says, is that people wind up setting unattainable goals. Ultimately, though they may have achieved some level of success, they end up feeling like failures.

Both experts say setting small, healthy goals over time will encourage success, reduce the chance of falling off the wagon and help maintain the weight loss in the long run, which is often the hardest part.

As for Ferguson, she ditched the pastry profession before her surgery and in 1999, started a business teaching belly dancing and Zumba, a dance-fitness program.

She’s put on some weight since her surgery and now weighs in at about 160 pounds – a mix of womanly curves and muscles that makes her happy.

Every day, Ferguson makes a conscious decision to eat well and stay active. But there’s also been another critical change in mindset: no longer treating food as the enemy.

“I changed everything about myself and I changed the way I look at food,” she says.

“Now it’s all about the right fuel for what I’m going to do with my body.”