Weight Watchers Helped One Employee Lose 130 pounds!

Once a marathon runner who didn't know a thing about healthy eating, Cleveland Clinic employee Nazalee O'Hearn found herself more than 100 pounds overweight when she stopped training. Weight Watchers helped her learn how to nurture her body the right way.

Even after gaining 120 pounds in three years, said O'Hearn,  "I still saw myself as that thin girl. I was very prideful, I suppose, and for me to admit I'd done this to myself was huge."  Her weight gain began while she was recuperating from tailbone surgery and wasn't allowed to run. She could have walked, but for an avid marathoner, that seemed wimpy and unthinkable. "It was running or nothing, and nothing won," she said. But she kept eating like a runner.  "I ate mindlessly because when I ran, I would just burn it off." After three months, she was 20 pounds heavier and a confirmed couch potato. And so it went. Her eureka moment came when her slacks waistband ripped, and ripped again and again. And she kept returning to the Nordstrom seamstress for repairs.

She weighed 272 pounds when she joined Weight Watchers. She learned to eat properly and lost almost 130 pounds. She's kept it off almost five years. "It's all about changing your habits and re-programming yourself and your relationship with food.  Obesity is a disease but with Weight Watchers they have the wellness prescription to fight it:  attend your meetings, exercise, think first and pick your food plan."   "Being a Weight Watchers leader is the most rewarding experience and getting members to goal, guiding them thru self awareness and having fun in my meeting rooms is an out of this world experience!"  O'Hearn, 38, also had to accept that the gray zone between marathon runner and couch potato was acceptable. She spins an hour a night and allows herself two days to rest. "I never did that before. Now I'll walk and listen to how my body is feeling."

Weight Watchers is available for full reimbursement to any Cleveland Clinic Employee Health Plan members.  To learn more, visit the employee health plan website at http://www.clevelandclinic.org/healthplan/secure/wellness.htm

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Nazalee is currently a Weight Watchers leader and welcomes employees who would like to communicate with her and receive her weekly inspirational email.  You can email Nazalee directly by clicking here