Lightening up

Leigh Ann Lape of Jackson is less than half the woman she used to be. The 5-foot, 3-inch Lape weighed 334 pounds when she made a New Year's resolution to join Weight Watchers just before 2003 turned into 2004.

Weight Watchers recommends that new clients not think about how much total weight they have to lose, but concentrate first on losing 10 percent of their body weight -- a more reasonable goal and less likely to discourage the client. Lape recalled thinking at that first meeting that maybe she could lose 10 pounds.

Now when Lape attends Weight Watcher meetings, leaders use her as an example of how large weight loss can be accomplished in small steps, and other clients look to the trim, attractive woman for inspiration.

"The first week I started I said I'd stick to it this week and see when I came back the next week," she said.

She set goals of 10 pounds at a time until she lost a total of 199 pounds -- the equivalent of a large person.

"I lost a big guy," she agreed, "a linebacker probably."

Lape, 35, said she has struggled with her weight for most of her life.

"I thought I had it pretty well under control," she said, "but once I got married and got on my own I started to put on weight."

After her daughter, Bailey, was born, the weight kept piling on until she was wearing a size 28.

"I probably needed a bigger size, but I couldn't find any," she said.

She said she was always uncomfortable especially during the summer months when just blow drying her hair would make her sweat. She was aware of people staring at her, especially her stomach where she carried most of her weight. She works in retail and is on her feet all day, and took Ibuprofen daily to alleviate the pain in her knees.

"I was always worried when I would go to places with folding chairs," she said. "I would not be able to sit in chairs with arms. When we went out to eat I couldn't fit into a booth."

The ultimate indignity came when she and her husband, stationed with the Army in Germany, were called home on emergency leave.

"I couldn't fit in a plane seat," she said. "I had to ask for a seat belt extender. I cried, I was so embarrassed."

Hoping to lose so much weight fast, she tried other weight loss programs.

"I tried Atkins, but it was too limiting," Lape said. "I tried Nutri-System, the cabbage soup diet, nothing I tried I could live with.

"I had gone to Weight Watchers before. I knew it was a good program, and I knew what I had to do."

Lape said she began feeling better after her first week's weight loss, but was about four months before she could walk without pain. About four months after she began losing weight, as soon as she could move without pain, she began walking every day, again setting small goals and working upward. At first she could barely make it around the block, but now she's walking four miles three or four times a week, and works out almost daily at a local exercise center.

As the weight melted off, customers at the Jackson Wal-Mart where she works began complimenting her. One day as she was walking in her neighborhood, two people in their yard noticed her and called out, "Hey, Wal-Mart lady. You're looking good."

"That really got to me," Lape said. "People who didn't even know me were encouraging me."

The people who did know her were also supportive. Lape said that even when she was at her heaviest, her husband Brian never complained about her weight.

"He would say 'I know you know what to do and when you are ready you will do it,'" he said. "If you are heavy, you know you are heavy. You don't need other people telling you."

While Lape was learning to change her eating habits, she also learned how to confront what made her overeat.

"I would eat when I got stressed," she said. "Now I go for a walk. That helps me feel a lot better. Food is comforting. I can't eat food to comfort myself, so I take a walk."

She changed the way she prepared food and her food choices, and changed other bad eating habits.

"I would work late a lot and would buy food to go, take it home, eat, and go straight to bed. That's the worst thing to do," she said.

Today, Lape is a new person. She has a stylish new haircut, is wearing capri pants and shorts for the first time in years. She wears size 10 and sometimes an 8.

"A year ago I would have been happy getting into a 16 or 18," she said. "When you're a size 28, 16 or 18 sounds good."

She gave away her large size clothes, and now can enjoy shopping again. For Christmas, her husband gave her a new wedding ring set. She said she feels more energetic, renewed.

"I feel like a better person all the way around," she said. "I'm a better mother, a better wife. I'm more outgoing. I have so much more confidence in myself."

And she did it all just 10 pounds at a time.

"If I can do it, it can be done."

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160