Bio: A California transplant who lived in the Midwest for a decade before settling in Colorado six years ago, Susan Buckley, 49, is a registered dietitian and nutrition manager for South Denver Cardiology Associates in Littleton. She lives in Highlands Ranch with her husband, Mark, two teenage daughters and three dogs, which she walks daily on the community’s extensive trail system.
The Challenge: In her mid-30s, having lost and regained weight on “literally dozens” of fad diets since high school, Buckley found after the birth of her second daughter that she had ballooned to 205 pounds. “I remember looking in the mirror and being so disgusted and demoralized,” she recalls. “It was a moment of reckoning. I knew I had to do something sane.”
How She Did It: She started eating less – “focusing on fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains” – and exercising more, usually in 45-minute workouts on a NordicTrack while her baby was taking her afternoon nap. By the end of a year, she had lost 70 pounds – an amount vividly depicted by a recent Oprah magazine feature in which Buckley was shown posing beside a pyramid-shaped stack of 70 1-pound cartons of butter.
Today, at 5 feet 6 and 135 pounds, she teaches classes in healthy cooking and eating for cardiac patients and their families.
“Before, I was either dieting or bingeing. There was no in-between. It finally clicked in my mind that this was not something to go on and off – that it had to be a lifestyle,” she says. “It was such a life-changing experience for me that I decided to go back to school and get my degree in nutrition, so I could help other people do what I’d done.”
Motivation: “I wanted my daughters to see that I was healthy and strong, so my weight would not be a limiting factor in my life.”
Still Working On: “I’m pretty religious about exercise,” she says. “I have tried to slack off, and every time I do, I see the weight start to creep up.” Besides walking the dogs, Buckley normally works out with weights two or three times a week, often at the Eastridge Recreation Center. She also puts in 45 minutes of aerobic training four to five times a week, usually at home on a treadmill at dawn while watching CNN or videos. “I tell people we all have the same 24 hours, and this is just like anything else that you make a priority,” she says. “You put it on your calendar and commit to it.”
Best Advice: “Just eating 100 calories a day over what your body needs can increase your weight by 10 pounds in a year, and 100 calories is not very much – it’s about half a slice of cheese pizza,” she says. “To feel satisfied while eating fewer calories, you want food that takes up a lot of volume and swells your stomach. If I’m going to have pizza, I’m going to have a salad first, so I can eat two pieces and feel full on 500 calories, not four pieces and 1,000 calories.”
Also: “Food is not the enemy. It’s what we all need to keep going. I really try to be mindful when I eat, even if it’s just for 10 minutes at my desk. It’s important to live in the moment and enjoy your food, so you don’t end up saying, ‘Where did that go?’ and then overeat.”
-Jack Cox
Do you know someone who has lost a lot of weight, rebounded after an illness or made a healthful lifestyle change? Send a name, daytime phone number and description to Fitness, The Denver Post, 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 600, Denver, CO 80202, or e-mail living@denverpost.com.
