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"  &amp;quot;I brought my family together&amp;quot; Farredeh Baughcum, 30, Monroe, GA Lbs. lost: 44Current weight: 143 lbs. Height: 5&amp;#039;9&amp;quot; My story: I got married in 2002. It should have been a happy time, but a year before, my mother was assaulted by a man she&amp;#039;d been seeing. In the course of an argument, he&amp;#039;d shoved her and broken her neck, leaving her paralyzed from the chest down. I hadn&amp;#039;t wanted her to visit him that day, and although I was pleased she was able to come to my wedding \u2014 making her wheelchair debut \u2014 I was filled with anger and fear and worry. Although the attack may not have been the direct cause of my weight gain, I&amp;#039;m sure, deep down, it led me to eat. The pounds piled on, especially after I had my daughters in 2005 and 2006, and my mother came to live with us. My weight climbed to 187 pounds. Click! As Christmas 2007 approached, I was making a family calendar when I came across a photo of me in a bathing suit taken on summer vacation. I was horrified and promptly deleted it. (Thank God for digital!) But I couldn&amp;#039;t forget the image, so in January, when my best friend, Lindsay, invited me to a Weight Watchers meeting, I went. At first, I thought I wasn&amp;#039;t going to go crazy trying to lose weight, but the meeting leader, Jan, was amazingly motivating, and I thought, I&amp;#039;m going to do this. I set my goal at 168, started counting points, and lost my first five pounds in three weeks. When I hit my target, I decided to keep going, and lost a total of 44 pounds. By September, when my husband brought my fall clothes up from the basement, nothing fit, and I had to buy all new outfits. It was fabulous! The turnaround: As I got fit, my mother and I began to get along much better. Exercise eased my anger about the assault, and soon I was helping her work out, too, using resistance bands and weights to strengthen her upper body. My girls join us now, blasting music and dancing. In fact, it&amp;#039;s changed how the whole family interacts. We used to watch TV together. Now my husband and I take the girls on hikes. I exercise eight to 10 hours a week, combining weights and cardio. I even ran a 10K race to celebrate my 30th birthday last July. When I&amp;#039;m training, and get tired and feel like quitting, I remember my mom in her wheelchair. I think how much she&amp;#039;d like to be able to run. It pushes me through that last mile.   &amp;quot;I beat a health scare&amp;quot; Courtney Dawson, 34, Shreveport, LA Lbs. lost: 188Current weight: 157 lbs. Height: 5&amp;#039;8&amp;quot; My story: Everyone in my family is heavy. We love our Southern cooking, junk food, and sweets \u2014 and we&amp;#039;ll fry anything. As a result, I ballooned through my teens. I was over 300 pounds when I gave birth to my first son in 2002. After my second son was born in 2006, I weighed an unbelievable 345 pounds! My blood pressure spiked to 146/101, and my doctor wanted to put me on medication. I&amp;#039;m a single mother. I needed to take care of my boys, see them grow, but I just didn&amp;#039;t want to take drugs. I begged the doctor to let me try to lower my pressure myself. He gave me a couple of weeks to start losing weight or, he warned, I&amp;#039;d have to take blood pressure pills.  The fight of my life: I started my diet by eating Lean Cuisine, drinking only water, and walking an hour a day. After two weeks, I&amp;#039;d lost six pounds, and a month later, I was down 20, and my blood pressure dropped to normal \u2014 120/80. The doctor said OK, but if my blood pressure went back up, I&amp;#039;d have to take pills. At that point, I joined LA Weight Loss, which provided some variety in my meals and also helped me learn to eat in moderation. And I kept walking every day. Health \u2014 and a new career: It took 18 months to lose all my weight. It was hard, but I feel great. I weigh less now than I did in sixth grade! My blood pressure is 110/74, and I never took medication. I love jeans and I feel great in them. More amazing, I feel I can do anything. I&amp;#039;ve been a blackjack dealer at the Boomtown Casino for 12 years, but since losing weight, I&amp;#039;ve been inspired to do more with my life, so I&amp;#039;ve gone back to school to study elementary education. My dream is to be a second grade teacher. Along with math and reading, I want to teach kids about a healthy lifestyle, so they don&amp;#039;t end up like me. I&amp;#039;m already doing that with my sons, going to the park to practice soccer and basketball or play on the swings and slides. Being in school with two kids and working is daunting. I used to not follow through on things. But now I know if I lost all that weight, I can do this, too.   &amp;quot;I left an unfulfilling marriage&amp;quot; Cathy Cox, 34, Delray Beach, FL Lbs. lost: 118Current weight: 135 lbs. Height: 5&amp;#039;6&amp;quot; My story: I was only 24 when the scale hit 253 pounds. As a graduate student in Atlanta, studying \u2014 ironically \u2014 public health, I tried fad diets, fat-burning pills, everything. Finally, I discovered eDiets, an online diet network. Following the group&amp;#039;s low-fat, low-cal meal plan, I shaved off 30 pounds over the next couple of years. In 2003, I married a quiet, intense man, and for a while, I thought I was happy with our life. But my husband had terrible eating habits \u2014 he liked fried and processed foods \u2014 and wanted no part of the healthy dishes I&amp;#039;d try to serve. I became less conscientious about my own diet and, in a few months, was back up to 237. Panicked, I returned to eDiets and, in seven months, lost 27 pounds. Then I started hitting the gym, and slowly, I dropped more weight. Breaking out: As I was getting thinner, I began to feel more confident. That&amp;#039;s when my marriage went downhill. I wanted to do things, but my husband liked the little life we had created. Once, when we were visiting friends in California, I was eager to go to the beach \u2014 I&amp;#039;d never seen the Pacific. But my husband had no interest. He came along for 10 minutes, then returned to the hotel to watch TV. My life was changing physically and emotionally. In three years, I&amp;#039;d lost 100 pounds. But my husband and I had grown apart. I tried to get him to go to therapy, but he wouldn&amp;#039;t, so eventually, I just packed a bag and left. I decided that as soon as we sold the house, I&amp;#039;d move to Florida. I&amp;#039;d always felt comfortable there when I visited, and I wanted a fresh start. Life: part two: That&amp;#039;s what I call my new existence. I bought a townhouse, have been dating, and have even changed careers. I no longer do research. Now I work for eDiets, the very company that helped me reinvent myself. I&amp;#039;m the success-story coordinator in Florida. I continued to lose weight and am also certified as a personal trainer. Me! Before, I couldn&amp;#039;t run a mile. Now I&amp;#039;ve run five half marathons. And my new true love is power lifting. In January I deadlifted 303 pounds, and last year I set a record for my weight class. Sometimes I think, Who am I? How did I get here? But I know I&amp;#039;ve become the person I was always meant to be.  &amp;quot;I got out of a midlife slump&amp;quot; Maria Kussmaul, 52, Weston, MA Lbs. lost: 31Current weight: 103 lbs. Height: 5&amp;#039;1&amp;quot; My story: Running has always been an essential part of my life. In 1996, I entered the Boston Marathon as a tribute to my first husband, a runner who had died. But running was also how I kept my sanity \u2014 and how I kept the pounds at bay. I never went above a size 6, even through three pregnancies. That ended in April 2006, when I developed severe hip pain, and an MRI seemed to indicate I&amp;#039;d worn away the cartilage in my hip. The doctors said, &amp;quot;Your running days are over.&amp;quot; At the same time, my older son, who was in seventh grade, had to be hospitalized three times (he&amp;#039;s fine now). Plus, I had two other children \u2014 a daughter, 15, and another son, 9. My business \u2014 a boutique investment bank I&amp;#039;d cofounded \u2014 picked up, requiring longer hours and more travel. My husband (I&amp;#039;d remarried in 1996) took over much of the grocery shopping, choosing a lot of packaged meals. Add the fact that I was entering menopause, and the combo was deadly: I gained 30 pounds in two years. The aha! moment: I hated the way I looked and felt. None of my clothes fit, so I bought cheap replacements, thinking I&amp;#039;d only be that size temporarily. When the seasons rolled around and I was still that size, I thought I&amp;#039;d have to resign myself to being a &amp;quot;frumpy 50-something suburban mom.&amp;quot; Then I met Susan Roberts, a nutrition professor from Tufts University, at a dinner. When she mentioned she&amp;#039;d written The Instinct Diet [now called The &amp;quot;I&amp;quot; Diet] and wanted to work with people who would try the plan, I thought, Here&amp;#039;s my shot. On February 7, 2009, my birthday, I started. Back on (the) track: I loaded up on high-fiber cereals, low-carb pitas. Once I settled into the program, I wasn&amp;#039;t hungry, and I lost weight quickly. By summer, I&amp;#039;d dropped 31 pounds. Then I got the urge to try running again. My hip didn&amp;#039;t flare up, so I stepped it up. Pretty soon, I was running 10 to 15 miles a week. I got that old feeling: &amp;quot;Oh, yeah, this is me.&amp;quot; Doctors aren&amp;#039;t sure why my hip healed \u2014 it might be it simply couldn&amp;#039;t take the double burden of my weight and running, but once I was lighter, the pain disappeared. In September, I began training for my second Boston Marathon. Fourteen years ago, I ran it as a goodbye to my first husband. This time, it was about celebrating, giving thanks that I have my life back.   &amp;quot;I launched a new business&amp;quot; Alicia Hunter, 42, Palm Beach Gardens, FL Lbs. lost: 56Current weight: 104 lbs. Height: 5&amp;#039;2&amp;quot; My story: My weight began to creep up during my battle with infertility in my early 30s. I had a series of miscarriages, unsuccessful fertility treatments, and then \u2014 a miracle baby. He was a preemie, but healthy. At four weeks, though, he developed an infection, and on November 11, 2003, he died. As I mourned, I turned to food. I didn&amp;#039;t care. I was in a fog. I was just going to wear big, high-waisted mom jeans. Who was going to criticize me? I&amp;#039;m only 5&amp;#039;2&amp;quot;, but I got up to 160.  Turning point:After the baby&amp;#039;s death, my husband and I adopted a son, Hayden, and then, two years later, I got pregnant and we were blessed with a daughter, Ashley. I finally had the family I always wanted. But I was still mourning the baby I&amp;#039;d lost, and my weight was making me miserable. One Sunday we were out on a boat with friends, and I felt like a whale next to the other wives in their bathing suits. I was fed up with the way I looked. More important, I felt I owed it to my son&amp;#039;s memory to get past my grief and be a more alive mom, more confident, for Hayden and Ashley. The next day, I began a strict regimen, eating a healthy 100- to 200-calorie mini-meal (yogurt, turkey roll-up, salad) every two hours. And I ran on the treadmill. The weight came off steadily, and a little over a year later, I had dropped 56 pounds.  The beautiful payoff: In 2004, I&amp;#039;d taken a big risk and started my own business, a skin-care salon. I loved it, but I was self-conscious. You should look good when you&amp;#039;re offering beauty services. As I lost weight, I felt better, and was so energized by my transformation that in March 2009 I became a certified weight-loss coach and added a diet-counseling component to my business. I&amp;#039;ve already had over 100 clients. I love it \u2014 I help them lose weight and I give them a makeover. I now guard my own weight loss like it&amp;#039;s a newborn. I weigh myself every day. I keep a food journal. If I lick the knife while making my kid a peanut butter sandwich, I add that. I do Pilates three times a week. Losing weight brought me out of a very dark place, and I never want to go back there. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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