Fat Chance by Julie Haddon Page A

the show, the remaining contestants and I had to complete a challenge that involved dragging a giant forty-pound scale behind us as well as the equivalent of whatever weight we had lost to that point in the game. The weight was added to our scales a little at a time, and as the challenge went on it became increasingly difficult to race back and forth. It was such a clear picture to me of how tough it is to soar when you’re dragging dead weight.
    I came across a quote one time that says, “Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” That about sums it up.
    Back then I had no idea what race God had marked out for me. Still don’t, as a matter of fact. But this much I do know: However the road winds and wherever it leads, it will be vastly easier to run in a sloughed-off-weight state. And I’ve got the proof to support it.
    When my teammate Isabeau auditioned for
The Biggest Loser
, part of her driving motivation was that she wanted to fit in with her family—her brother, her mom and her dad—all of whom were “normal” size. Sure, she wanted other things, too, like pursuing a songwriting career, becoming a bona fide rock star and wearing off-the-rack jackets from Urban Outfitters. But underneath all of that were those “deeper waters”—the emotional weight of feeling ostracized from her own family.
    Every year Isabeau’s family ran a 5K race together, which she had never been able to run. It would bring her to tears to talk about how every summer she’d sit on the curb, waiting the half-hour for them to return. “It was inconceivable to them that I’d ever participate in that run,” she told me one day. “We all had just accepted the fact that this was ‘their thing’ that I didn’t do.”
    The first time I ran a road race, I cried the entire first mile of the nine-mile total. I couldn’t believe I was actually achieving something I had yearned to do for thirty-five years.
    Between Isabeau’s time on campus and our season finale, she ran that racewith her family, all 3.1 miles of it. She wasn’t rail-thin when she ran, but she was definitely carrying less weight—physically, emotionally, in
every
regard—and on that day Isabeau soared.
    After the Season 4 finale, my husband and I had my goal-shirt encased in glass and hung it in our den. To this day it serves as a reminder of the lifelong commitment I made.
    I think about her achievement now and remember every drop of sweat that got her to that race. I remember every hour in the gym. Every wind sprint we were forced to run. Every doughnut we refused to eat. Every
everything
that brought the new “us” into being. And still today I know she’d agree that it was worth every ounce of that work. To feel light on your feet on a God-ordained path—is there a better reward than that?
    People ask me whether I kept that goal-shirt, and my answer’s always the same: Of course I kept that shirt! It’s the
motto
that I changed and now can leave behind. I already “finished what I started, for once.” And now I’m determined “to
continue
what I started,
forever
.”

MY BEST ADVICE
    Move More and Eat Less
    The most frequently asked question I get from people who are trying to lose weight is this one: “How did you do it?” They approach me in grocery stores, in restaurants, at my son’s soccer games, everywhere I go, it seems, and want to know exactly what I did to drop my weight.
    What they expect in reply is some complicated formula that I followed to the letter. I can see it in their eyes. Which is why I know that my actual response is always something of a disappointment.
    “If you want to lose weight,” I explain, “you have to move more. And eat less.”
    They stare back at me as if to say, “No, really. Tell me what you did.”
    But that is, in fact, what I did. It’s what every fat person who lost weight did, unless they went the surgical route.
    The Biggest Loser
taught me many