We've seen the jokes about obese Tampa Bay mom. Got any advice for her?

 

[John Pendygraft | Times]

Stacy Woltmann weighs 419 pounds. A chair once collapsed beneath her at Subway. Another time, she was escorted out of the Mummy roller coaster at Universal because she couldn't fit in the seat.

St. Petersburg Times writer Leonora LaPeter Anton writes about Woltmann's decision to go on a diet — and lose 100 pounds in a year. Seems like a long shot, but Woltmann, 30, says she's determined and is writing about her mission on her Race to the Skinny Jeans blog.

Tampabay.com readers have posted more than 60 comments, some offering Woltmann inspiration and tips: Have your dinner salad first, try Weight Watchers, eat in moderation.

To nobody's surprise, readers also have chimed in with their fat jokes and nasty remarks. They have asked how she let her weight get so out of control and raised doubts about whether Woltmann will reach her goal.  Jay from Tampa, wrote that she "should have never gotten that big to begin with."

Woltmann knows that, and becoming a mother has inspired her to do something about it. Her photo was on the St. Petersburg Times' front page and on tampabay.com's homepage today.

So, before you comment on this story, we have a couple of questions: Would you announce your weight next to your name? Would you have your photo taken if you were obese?

Comments

[JFR]

Answer to the questions:
I am a middle aged female, 5'10 and currently weigh 200 pounds. My goal is 160 to 170.

I have my picture taken all the time ( I am going to assume that I am considered obese since at 5'10 I don't weigh 98 pounds, the standard for modern beauty lol).

Stacy, you can do it!

[GuessWho]

Stacy is a very beautiful and intelligent young lady. I truly believe that she can do anything when she puts her mind to it. For anyone who does not know Stacy and has nothing good to say - then don't say anything at all. You go girl!!!!!!

[Stacy]

I would just like to thank everyone for their support.

-Stacy

[Meggie]

The low carb/portion control with exercising 5 days a week (1 hour) is what helped me lose 90 so far. As soon as I stopped for a few weeks of vacation...back it started to pile one. Luckily, I knew how to stop that and am working my way back down. sparkpeople.com is a great site to track food and exercise.

[Meg]

I agree with JS. I corrected my thyroid issues and have switched to a very low carb diet. Even having to be off my feet for a week, I lost a pound. I am not as hungry anymore either. Low carbs seems to be the way to go (and I don't mean switch to complex carbs, I mean less than 20 grams per meal.) Check out Dr. Richard K. Bernstein's information.

[Karl]

The singer, Mario Lanza used to have himself put into a coma for a month to prevent from eating. Most of Madeira Beach's City Commissioners are currently using this therapy.

[Harry]

I visited a dietician who put me touch with a website called Fitday.com. It's free and allow you to record calories, etc, and gives you the actual percentages of fats, carbs, proteins that you consume every day. She also measured my metabolism and determined the appropriate amount of calories in what percentages I needed.
It has worked very well.
I wish this young lady all the best.

[LEJ]

I lost weight (only 40 pounds so far) by exercising an hour a day three days a week, cutting down on all snacks, no sodas (diet drinks only). A friend is monitoring me to make sure I do not cheat (I do a weigh in with him before exercise).

You will lapse at times. Do not let the mistakes get to you. Just go from that point on and continue. You can do it!

[David Brown]

Obesity if a complicated condition. There are many variables due to variations in physiological and biochemical makeup. For example, assuming the same quantity and quality of food intake, some people have too much fat because they have a naturally large appetite and eat a lot. Others eat a lot but can't gain weight because their digestive systems do not allow as many calories to be absorbed into the bloodstream.

Fat or thin, it's important to realize that quality (biological potency) and appropriateness are the two factors that determine ones health. The so-called obesity epidemic is the result of an industrialized food supply that offers too much manufactured food of the sort that upsets hormone balance, curtails gut microbe activity, and deranges the appetite.

I hope Stacy will educate herself on these matters before choosing a diet that is inappropriate or otherwise somehow deficient in vital nutrients. One of the best sources of information is the Weston A. Price Foundation. For information on gut microbes and weight control, Google "Gary Tivendale Documents."

[don]

Her good bye dinner with the doughnut at the end does not bode well for the future. In buddhist thought, the way to succeed is to see reality as it is; a doughnut should be viewed as a part of a diabetic, gangrenous leg being amputated; if we begin to view salty, fat laden, goo that passes as food as a component of early death, we lose our appetite for it. Now, what do I do with all of the mercury in the fish? But I digress; I certainly wish her well, but she has to stop wanting the food. We normally yield to our desires, and the solution is to change the desire. Thanks. Don. 5-6 male 185 after losing 25 pounds this year.

[Will - 6'2" tall, 180 lbs]

This doesnt work for everyone, but i was at 210 lbs, and that was the point that i decided to make a change. General calorie counting was the key, not a much different theory than weight watchers with the point system. I lost 35 lbs in 6 months and since have ranged from 175 to 180.

I simply eat around 2000 calories a day. Its easy to figure out what your typical meal at home is in calories, and trimming the portions gets you where you need to be. Planning 400 calories for breakfast, 800 lunch, 800 dinner gets you where you need.

Moderate walking keeps your metabolism up too.

[TubbyReels 345 - Because he like to fish]

Don't feel so bad. I demoed a display model Craftsman shop stool the other day and when I sat on it, not only did the seat feel like I was sitting on a pie plate but the main stamped steel shaft mangled under my weight. After half a dozen office chairs that looked like the were run over by a dumb truck, I've finally settled on a commercial barber's chair with a forged steel support shaft, a ten ton hydraulic piston and a four foot stainless steel base.

[David 6'2" 219 lbs 11% bodyfat]

Yes, a sensible diet is a step in the right direction for Stacy. And as soon as possible, she needs to incorporate exercise into her daily regimen. Even if it is nothing more than walking around the block a few times after dinner, every little bit helps. At one point in 2006, I was 272 lbs, and approximately 29% bodyfat. Weight loss won't happen overnight, but if you stay the course, it WILL happen!

[James]

Ignore the losers like GreatSchmoe. People who have no lives try to belittle people who do. The guy is loser and he knows it.

[TheGreatSchmoe]

My advice is, don't make it a habit by stopping off at the food stamp office and instead of coller coasters, demand a freight car ride.

[John]

In the 70s I was 5' 10" and 250. I eventually succeeded in losing weight by exercise and diet and have remained at 165 for over 35 years.
I would suggest that this young lady develop thick skin and ears and ignore the morons who joke, make snide remarks and ask stupid questions. Most times, a cool stare and silence does wonders.
Stacy will make it....despite the assaults.

[Patricia]

I am 38 and 5'2 and weigh 240lbs female... I will be watching too... Some how we can win this battle !!!

[JS]

The only way you’ll win the war against weight is by understanding what causes weight gain. What you’re about to read contradicts everything you probably believe about obesity and weight loss. You need to change the way you think about this in your mind.

1.Obesity is a disease of excess fat accumulation. Over eating does not cause obesity. Period. Obesity is not a mental disorder. Obesity is the result of a defective fat metabolism system. As a matter of fact, over eating is a symptom of obesity, not the cause.

2.Exercise doesn’t make you lose weight. Exercise is great to improve fitness, but almost useless to stimulate weight loss.

3.Eating saturated fat does not make you fat and does not cause heart disease.

4.Fat accumulation is regulated by hormones, the primary one being insulin.

Here’s the basic idea: Fat accumulation is regulated by insulin. Some people are very sensitive to their insulin and only need to make a little bit of insulin. Other people are not sensitive to their insulin and produce a lot more of it. In these individuals, the high levels of insulin circulating in their blood stream forces a larger portion of the fuel they consume (food) to be partitioned into fat tissue. As this fat tissue grows, it creates a demand for more and more fuel, leading to insatiable hunger and over eating. Fat tissue is metabolically active and actually creates an environment of internal starvation, where the food an obese person eats is first used to feed the fat tissue, to the detriment of the rest of the body’s organs and muscle tissue. As they eat more and more food, it gets converted to fat tissue very easily as a result of the high insulin levels in the bloodstream, leading to a feedback loop of efficient fat tissue creation, incredible hunger, over eating, and more fat tissue creation.

When you think about obesity in this manner, it frees you of the ridiculous Puritanical model of obesity as a result of over eating and inactivity. In our new model, obesity is the cause of over eating, not the result.

This new model of obesity also allows you to create diet strategies that target the real cause of obesity, not some ludicrous mental disorder. If obesity is a disease of excess fat accumulation, and insulin regulates fat accumulation, then a good weight reduction diet would be one that lowers the level of insulin your body makes. The diets that do this are all the various low carbohydrate/ketogenic/paleolothic diet plans that are floating around. They all vary in style and composition, but all of them will reduce your level of circulating insulin. Any one of them is better than the unhealthy low fat, calorie restricted diet you are following. Reducing your body's insulin levels is the key.

I didn’t make this up, I learned it through diligent research. Please read “Genocide: How Your Doctor’s Dietary Ignorance Will Kill You” by James Carlson and “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes.

Read everything you can about nutrition, trust your own judgment, and think critically about the conventional wisdom. We all have our own path to take. I followed the conventional low fat, low calorie diet advice and lost a few pounds, but gained it all back in a year. I finally lost 52 pounds following the advice above. I have the lipid and cholesterol panels of a 25 year old. It works. Good luck on your journey.

[Carl Cronan]

The worst problem I've ever had is staying focused on goals. Hunger is a huge derailer but if you make the right choices (carrots instead of cookies, for example) you can get past that. Eyes on the prize! I'll be watching Stacy's progress and will try to make some of my own. (I'm 6 feet, 280 lbs.)

[Mike Coleman 5foot6 245lbs]

Stacy can do whatever she sets her mind to. Find any program based on healthy eating in proper portions (Weight Watchers for example)and make a change in your LIFESTYLE. I have lost almost 100 pounds in two years by doing this and have stopped almost half of my medications. My goal is 185 and I *will* get there because I am determined to. DO NOT GIVE UP STACY! Same to all of you who had anything negative to say about someone that put themselves out there like that. Most women I see on Facebook don't even reveal their year of birth, much less their age!

[JC]

Don't eat so much!

[Adam Hlas]

This is good that she's ready to take action, instead of complaining. However, 90% of people trying to lose weight, simply don't use the correct knowledge. I've been helping people with weight loss and image shaping for 15 years [diet/workout/lifestyle/cooking], and would love to give Stacy information on how to lose weight the RIGHT way, and keep it off! No bogus supplements or terrible tv dinners...
Feel free to email me for further discussion in helping Stacy reach her goal. I will not charge Stacy for my services, but she must promise to follow the direction she is given. You have my email address. [or 727-481-9448]
thanks

[Lefty]

I've lost 100lbs in a year and got off insulin & all diabetic meds, they have been saying it as long as I can remember, and it is true, "diet & excercise will cure the body!!!
It just takes some will to do it!!