A new Dawn: Dawn West has lost more than 100 pounds by eating less and moving more

Published 12:00 am Friday, January 30, 2009

By Katie Scarvey
kscarvey@salisburypost.com
These days, when you hear that someone has lost a huge amount of weight, you often assume that it involved gastric bypass surgery.
Dawn West, however, has lost more than 100 pounds the old-fashioned way ó by eating less and exercising more.
From the third grade on, she was overweight, Dawn says. As a kid, she remembers eating chicken nuggets for breakfast.
Her parents divorced when she was in the sixth grade, and in the eighth grade, she moved from Norfolk, Va., to live with her father in Rowan County.
Her father ó who did not have a weight problem, she says ó tried to get her to be more active. He encouraged her to go for walks, and he built a volleyball court in their yard.
It didn’t have much of an effect, she admits.
After graduating from West Rowan High School, she went to Catawba College. Her freshman year, she was so afraid of gaining weight that she actually lost 40 pounds in her first semester.
She was exercising more but hadn’t really changed her eating habits, she says. Before long, she had gained the weight back.
Looking back, she realizes her weight affected her in many ways.
“I’m very shy,” she says. “I didn’t make friends easily. I was always the fat girl in the group.”
Dawn made her decision to lose weight three years ago, when she was 24.
She had just gone to Hawaii to see her sister, she says. The 10-hour flight was “so uncomfortable,” she says, because she barely fit into the seat.
She tipped the scales at 281 pounds and wore a size 22-24.
She was tired of the excess pounds holding her back.
“It’s time to lose weight,” she told herself.
She believes that her father’s death due to lung cancer also prompted her weight loss.
“My dad was the only person I believed when he said I was beautiful,” she says.”Dad said he’d always love me,” she says, no matter how much she weighed.
After he died, she not only lost him, she lost his unconditional love and approval.
And so Dawn’s weight loss journey began.
She started to pay attention to what she was eating.
She joined what was then Gold’s Gym ó now The Forum ó and made herself go even when she didn’t particularly feel like it.
“Bring your body first and your mind will follow,” she advises.
She started out with small changes.
Cheeseburgers and french fries and sugary soda used to be a big part of her life, but she didn’t eliminate them cold turkey, she says. She’d integrate a small change until it was habitual, and then she’d add another.
The changes have been effective.
Dawn has lost 108 pounds and now wears about a size 12. Her BMI has plummeted from 45 to 27.8, and her body fat is now at 23.5 percent.
Even her shoe size has decreased, from a 9 1/2 wide to an 8 1/2.
She is only 13 pounds from hitting her goal weight of 160 pounds, a number she considered “ridiculous” when her doctor suggested it three years ago.
She is more concerned with being healthy and feeling good than with what she sees on the scales or a clothing tag.
“It’s not about a number,” she says.
These days, Dawn eats a lot of vegetables and fresh fruit and tries things she never ate before. “I love the steamable squash,” she says. When she buys chicken, she makes sure she repackages it into single-serving sizes so she is not tempted to overeat.
She no longer keeps sodas in the house, unless they’re diet, and she tries to limit her intake of those, since they’re not particularly good for you either, she says.
When she goes out to eat, she tries to plan ahead, looking up restaurant menus ahead of time so she can make a healthy entree choice.
Sometimes, when she gets her restaurant meal, she’ll request a carry-out box right away so that she can take half home instead of eating it all.
Besides changing her diet, she’s made working out a priority. She needs the structure that a gym provides and says that she doesn’t do as well exercising at home.
“I schedule my life around the gym,” she says.
“Sometimes, I get on people’s nerves ó I’ll turn down dates to go to the gym.”When she first started taking exercise classes, she’d try to hide out in the back of the class. Now, she says, you can often find her right up front.
She typically goes to The Forum six or seven days a week. Sometimes, she goes twice a day, although she tries to give herself a break sometimes, she says.
Forum co-owner Matt Marsh says that Dawn, who doesn’t hesitate to share her story, has been an inspiration to other members.
“Her level of commitment has really impressed me,” says Marsh, who adds that a lot of marriages don’t last three years ó the length of time that Dawn has been faithfully coming to the gym.”She’s got a great determination.”
Dawn has participated in several 5Ks. Two years ago, it took her more than an hour to finish one in Mocksville. Last year, she finished one in Concord in 45 minutes. In November, she finished a Thanksgiving 5K in 35 minutes and ran the first mile without stopping ó which was a huge victory for her, she says.
“I was really emotional after I finished,” she says. “I cried a little bit.”
“If my dad could see me now, he’d be so proud.”
If she could give people advice on starting to lose weight, she says that working out with a buddy, the way she did, is a good way to build accountability into a life change.
“Starting out, I needed that,” she says.
Dawn doesn’t have any amazing secrets to share, but she does have a success story that’s based on common sense and moderation ó and a long-term commitment to changing her life.
“I’m more aware of what I put into my body now,” she says, although she adds that she’s not an avid calorie-counter.
The staff members at The Forum have helped her immensely, she says.
“I love the instructors,” she says. “They motivate you and keep you going.”
Dawn works at the Food Lion corporate office and says that even at work, she’s doing things a little differently.
Sometimes, instead of sending an e-mail, she’ll leave her desk and walk to deliver her message in person. Because she works in quality assurance, she’s sometimes tempted by food as part of her job. She and her colleagues must sometimes sample food to make sure it’s up to standards.
“Some days it’s easy to say ‘no,'” she says.
Sometimes, though, she gives in to temptation, she says. During a sampling of deli cakes, she admits she “had a slice of every single one.”
But when she does fall off the wagon, she stays in the gym twice as long to make up for her lapses, she says.
She doesn’t like to deny herself everything she likes.
“If I want something,” I’ll have it,” she says ó just not as often as she used to.
She says that she knows some women who try to restrict their caloric intake to 600-700 calories a day.
“That’s just not healthy,” she says.
Dawn loves seeing old friends who are surprised by her new appearance. She admits that she hates going to a friend’s house and seeing old “fat” pictures of herself.
She tells those friends that she wants to take a new photo to replace the old one with.
As she has shed pounds, Dawn’s confidence has increased.
She says she’s banished “I can’t” from her vocabulary and replaced it with “I can.”
“I just feel like I’m always happy,” she says, adding that her whole attitude and demeanor have changed.
Now, she says, if someone tells her that she’s beautiful, she can say “thank you” and mean it.