My healthy life: Losing weight through healthy eating

Low-carbohydrate diets, such as Atkins or South Beach, work, but they're not the only way to go. I found this out when I designed a weight-reduction plan to suit my own high-carb needs.

Six years after my second child was born I decided to shed my pregnancy weight once and for all -- the weight that all my friends had told me would just “fall off” after I gave birth. All my friends were wrong. Not only did the weight not fall off, it shot up into the stratosphere.

An escalating chocolate habit accounted for a good part of it. A freelance writing career that kept me up in my Toronto home office at all hours of the night, bowl of buttered popcorn at my side, took care of the rest.

This was not the first time I confronted the fat demon. A seasoned yo-yo dieter, I had lost the same 20 to 30 pounds several times in my life, but this time my vanity seemed to be in hiding. I was married, I was a mother, why did I need to be thin? Then one day I came across the medical definition of obesity -- 30 per cent above your ideal weight -- in a scientific journal article. I forced myself to do the calculation. There was no escaping it: at 210 pounds, 31 per cent above the recommended weight for my five-foot-11 frame, I was technically (and visibly) obese. I was also tired all the time.

My brother, a cardiologist, reminded me of the connection between obesity and heart disease, obesity and stroke, obesity and diabetes. I told him to go feed his cat. But I knew it was time to take the flab by the fists and do something.

But what? My previous dieting efforts had always ended in a big boomerang, following the classic cycle of deprivation and depravity. When I was good, I was very, very good (cottage cheese), and when I was bad, I was horrid (a whole Sara Lee cheesecake). It was time to try something different.

Page 1 of 3 -- On page 2, Gabrielle shares her experience going to a popular weight-loss program.