Striving for the TOPS: Weight-loss group centered on support of members – Spartanburg Herald Journal
Commitments are sometimes short-lived. Individuals typically hand over on a few of life’s most necessary ones — to their lover, to their religion. To shedding pounds. Maybe that is what made a go to to a longstanding weight-loss help group so fascinating. Each Tuesday night time at about 6, a dozen or extra ladies and some males of assorted ages come to a classroom at United Methodist Church of the Covenant north of Spartanburg to be with associates. These associates solely know one another as a result of they share the identical aim — to shed fats.
They’re dedicated. Some have been dedicated to this weekly assembly longer than some marriages final.
Take Betty Livingston. She has been a member of TOPS (Taking Off Kilos Sensibly) for 30 years. And there are others like her on this group. Regardless of the place they transfer, they all the time discover a chapter of TOPS to hitch.
Livingston has been with the group so lengthy that her 52-year-old son remembers the pink pig.
“He remembers me bringing that previous pig residence and sitting it on the kitchen desk, a reminder that I needed to reduce weight. We stopped that as a result of I suppose some individuals acquired offended as a result of it related us with pigs,” she stated with a chuckle.
On a latest Tuesday night time, Betty stepped on the scales behind a closed door so the week’s weight recorder, Jean Walker, the founding father of the chapter in 1967, might test her progress.
Oops. She had gained a pound and needed to document it in her “weight-loss checkbook,” a e-book that every one the members carry.
“Once we acquire, we make a deposit. Once we lose, we deduct it. It is higher to have minus indicators,” she stated.
“Despite the fact that a few of us have been coming a very long time and have not misplaced all of our weight, it retains us from gaining. I do know that if I did not attend the conferences with my associates, I might weigh 500 kilos.”
She comes regardless of the actual fact she has had each her knees changed, 5 vertebrae in her again are fused and she or he wears a pacemaker.
“If I went on my emotions, I might simply sit down and moan and groan. However I am unable to do this. I’ve to maintain going,” she stated, including that train consists of strolling within the water on the Swim Heart in Spartanburg.
Tonight, nonetheless, she should pay the group’s financial institution 25 cents for the pound she gained. That is the worth for gaining.
The massive loser for the week will get $1. The loser for the month will get $5, sufficient to cowl the month-to-month dues.
Subsequent up is Frances Ballard, who will get to put on a tiara as a result of she made first alternate to the state’s queen. She misplaced 52 kilos and was in a position to cease taking her blood strain treatment.
She’s stored the load off practically two years.
Final month, throughout an open home, Ballard introduced Brownie Shock for everybody to strive. The shock, she stated, is that the recipe requires pinto beans, which makes the dish low in fats and sugar. She as soon as introduced an apple spice cake made with white beans. With the intention to lose her weight, she changed fried meals with baked and grilled meals, reduce out sugars and extreme carbohydrates.
The TOPS chapter presents a e-book to members referred to as “The Selection is Yours,” which principally is the trade food plan for diabetics. However, members can use any food plan, so long as it is wholesome.
Ballard additionally walked three miles a day. Not too long ago, she managed to get in her miles of strolling by taking her grandchildren alongside and pushing a stroller.
“My household is so proud. That is the second yr they’ve seen me trying like this,” she stated.
Linda Phillips, who moved from Michigan to Spartanburg 5 years in the past together with her husband, Steve, who can be within the group, likes to inform a narrative about Ballard’s success. The 2 had been strolling companions whereas Ballard was trying to get to her aim weight.
In the future on the stroll, after shedding practically 40 kilos, Ballard informed Phillips she was dissatisfied as a result of nobody had seen that she was thinner.
Linda knew why. Frances was nonetheless sporting her previous garments, which had turn out to be dishevelled, overlaying up her new physique.
Linda took Frances purchasing and insisted she strive on sizes 12 and 10.
Each match. She had been used to sporting measurement 19 and 20.
“She had tears in her eyes. She could not imagine she might match into a ten. That is what is necessary about our relationship. We assist one another cease pondering negatively about ourselves,” Linda stated.
In the course of the week, members typically mail playing cards of encouragement to 1 one other or make upbeat phone calls.
Linda even talked Betty, who’s now 70, into visiting Victoria’s Secret after she had misplaced 50 kilos.
“I had by no means been in that retailer earlier than. I all the time thought it was only for younger, horny women,” she stated with chuckle.
After the weigh-in, the group says the TOPS pledge collectively:
“I’m an clever particular person.
“I’ll management my feelings, not let my feelings management me.
“Each time I’m tempted to make use of meals to fulfill my pissed off needs, construct up my injured ego, or boring my senses, I’ll bear in mind, regardless that I overeat in non-public, my extra poundage is there for all of the world to see how silly I’ve been.”
The recorder proclaims how a lot weight has been gained and misplaced by the group and the very best loser of the week. Then, every week, somebody presents a program. This week, Joe Wilson will discuss in regards to the significance of consuming water.
Joe and Rita, who simply celebrated 49 years collectively and moved to Spartanburg from Maryland two years in the past, have been in TOPS collectively for years.
The burden loss has helped Joe take care of his bronchitis and he made it to runner-up for king and received a state award in Maryland. Rita, a former TOPS queen in Maryland, has managed to maintain her weight off, regardless of her dependancy to chocolate.
Each week, the group selects a “no-no” meals. All of the members put of their “sinful” meals, the stuff that tempts them and makes them acquire weight.
For Rita, after all, it is chocolate. For Joe, it is ice cream.
For each serving of “no-no” you eat throughout the week, you pay a dime to the group’s financial institution.
The cash within the financial institution helps the group pay for the charms or pins they obtain every time they lose one other 10 kilos. It additionally pays for events.
You can not inform a lie within the group. “You are available and face everybody,” Rita stated of the checks and balances of this help group.
To maintain the group from becoming bored with shedding pounds, members provide you with contests.
The most recent contest includes pie. Everybody will get a drawing of a pie, divided into items. Every week, if a member good points weight, a bit of the pie is reduce away. The one with probably the most pie on the finish of the competition will get a prize.
This time the prize is paper merchandise donated by every of the members.
“We attempt to make it enjoyable,” Betty stated of the newest scheme to advertise weight reduction. “These contests preserve us on-line and preserve us eager to reduce weight. Plus, everybody likes to have a bit of reward to unwrap.”
When members attain their aim weight and do not go over by greater than 3 kilos or below by 7, they get a diploma and put on a white cap and robe at a state recognition day.
If the load stays off, the members graduate to KOPS — Protecting Kilos Off Sensibly.
Ruby Vanover, for instance, holds the KOPS document. She has stored 33 kilos off for 4 years.
After the pomp and circumstance, nonetheless, some drop out, solely to realize the load again.
It appears the conferences and the friendships have one thing to do with shedding the load.
“Most of us have had a weight drawback for a big portion of our lives and can proceed to have it,” stated Linda, who has a number of sclerosis and surgical pins in each ankles.
“It is a lifetime dedication.”
Employees author Suellen E. Dean writes about odd individuals who do extraordinary issues. Contact her at 562-7212 or su**********@sh*.com.
