Overhaul Your Lifestyle and Your Life

Replace the diet mentality with healthier options.

Dianne was playing with her cats on the floor of her Avenel home when she realized she could not get up; 280 pounds smothered her five-and-a-half foot frame and held her hostage.

“Mom, you’re going to die young if you don’t lose weight,” her 14-year-old son yelled in a flash of adolescent anger that masked his fear. That did it, the 49-year-old mother of two recalled recently.

By December 2003, she’d had enough. “I ate for happiness, sadness, and anything in between,” she says. Her self-realization prompted her to sign up with Fitness by Sheila, which began a journey that overhauled her lifestyle and her life.

A Bethesda-based, nationally certified lifestyle and weight management consultant and personal fitness trainer, Sheila Cave took a two-pronged approach—she pointed out to Dianne that emotions triggered her eating and put her on an exercise program that reduced her anxiety and depression.

Sheila started Dianne on a weekly work-out session and four-mile group walk, then upped the exercise sessions to twice a week. Dianne swore off alcohol except for weekends, substituted high-fat and high-calorie foods such as ice cream with small, occasional portions of healthier choices such as frozen yogurt. She also learned to opt for fruits and vegetables rather than crackers, cookies, and cake.

“Don’t cut calories; change what you are eating. Get honest. Get real. Get those blinders off,” says Sheila, with a combination of a smile and dead-serious eyes that hint at both challenge and fun. “Get rid of the diet mentality and replace it with healthy choice selections.”

Dianne, now 125 pounds lighter, credits a lifestyle makeover rather than a miracle diet. “The combination of the individual training sessions and training with a group kept me coming back—it’s a recipe for success. I am still on my journey to health and self-awareness.”

Dianne’s son, now a high school senior, is happy that his concern for his mother motivated her to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Editor’s Note: In the upcoming issues of Washington Home & Garden, Sheila will share real-life stories of weight loss, attaining fitness at mid-life, and improving lifestyle and lifespan through healthy choices.