WHO: Adina Ingram
AGE: 37
CITY: Oakville, Ont.
By The Numbers: 270 at my heaviest, and currently 197, total weight loss of 73 pounds.
The Weight Gain: After a childhood trauma at the age of eight, I turned to food for comfort and support. I grew up in the country so we grew our own food. Eating well was not the issue, I just didn't know where to stop.
At 35 and having just given birth to my second child, my body started to fight back. I was plagued with excruciating pain in my right knee. After tests, I was told, as a result of the extra 120 pounds I was carrying on my body, I had arthritis. It was next to impossible to carry my newborn up a simple flight of stairs.
A month later, I was sitting on the couch with my then five-year-old daughter and a commercial came on TV for a popular weight loss clinic. We both sat in silence. At the end of the commercial, my daughter looked at me, very innocently and said, "That's what you need, mom." I cried. But that was still not enough for me to make a change.
The Final Straw: My path crossed with a motivational and heart-felt personal trainer. She was a vendor at a trade show I was putting on for a client. I heard her speak for 20 minutes and I was convinced. I walked up to her at the end of the long day and told her, "I don't know how or when, but I know we are meant to work together." We started working out that year.
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Adina BEFORE
Adina AFTER
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The Plan Of Attack: Three days of training, working with a nutritionist, counselling on all the mental work, and trying to embrace everything was all being thrown at me.
Three months passed. I lost 22 lbs. and 24 inches. I was physically moving better, had a glow in my skin I had never seen, and for the very first time in my life, after numerous failed attempts at weight loss, my journey had begun.
The Food Element: I have turned away from most refined foods, like sugar, white flour and breads. I pack on the veggies! One of my all time favourite meals as a kid was Spanish-style chicken. We ate it with a heap of white rice (now not part of my nutritional plan at all), and canned spaghetti sauce (beware of sodium and sugar), but now I eat it with a 1/2 cup whole grain brown rice, 1/4 cup quinoa, or 1/2 cup lentil or chickpea pasta.
The Exercise Factor: I just try to do something every day and get a minimum of 10,000 steps in. I have been playing with intervals. It’s fun, mixing things up a bit and I can honestly say the 30 to 45 minutes goes by super fast. One of my routines can be found here.
My career of 13 years in HR came to sudden end in April. My trainer wanted me to come to help her run her newly relocated studio in downtown Oakville. Soon after I was certified as a personal trainer in July and have started taking on my own clients looking for major transformation in their own lives. I am planning to become a Nutritional and Weigh Loss Specialist as well.
The Current Day-To-Day: I still have a ways to go. But I know no matter what, I'm headed in the right direction. I will never go back to size 22 pant or 4X shirt. I will never go back to sitting on the sidelines of my kids' lives. I will never go back to being complacent. I can run now. I can do cartwheels with my daughter. I can sprint up the stairs with both kids on my hip and back. I can shop in non-plus-size stores. It’s all amazing to me -- and a life I thought I would never know.
Using the term "lost" is such a misnomer as when you lose something, there is typically a feeling of void or emptiness. This loss in my life as brought nothing but true gain!
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