Name: Pamela Clarke
Age: 47
Occupation: Trust examiner
Hometown: Port Coquitlam, British Columbia
Start Weight: 263 pounds
End Weight: 145 pounds
Time Running: 9 years
When I was 263 pounds, I was living with my boyfriend, Ken—who I eventually married. When we originally met a year or two prior to reaching that weight in 1998, I had gotten down to 180 pounds. However, you meet, fall in love, and eat, right? Well, that’s what we did.
Our lifestyle was very centered around entertaining people in our home every weekend, and always involved lots of food and drink. The bottom line is, I had no idea how to feed myself and had no concept of when I had eaten enough. We were eating out all the time, too. It seemed as though everything revolved around food.
I also did little to no physical activity at the time. My boyfriend, however, was very active. He walked every night after supper, and he always asked me to go with him, but I never wanted to go. When I look back, it was because I was physically exhausted.
But it all hit me when I was taking care of a neighbor’s plants in 1998. I had filled the water jug in the tub, and when I went to lift it, my back gave out. I was lying on the floor screaming for my boyfriend who eventually found me, got me up, and took me to the emergency room.
It was there that the nurses tried sending me to the maternity ward. Because of the back pain and the way I was walking, they assumed I was in labor or pregnant. When the doctor saw me, he told me that because of how I carried my weight, mostly around my stomach, my back couldn’t support it. Due to such little physical activity, my spine was completely out of alignment.
The whole hospital experience was a wake-up call. A week or so later, I found myself at a walk-in clinic begging and crying for help to lose weight. The doctor sent me home with a prescription for antidepressants and offered no advice or a referral to a dietician. I never filled that prescription. That is when the journey really began. I had to save my own life; I was dying.
My journey with exercise started slowly alongside teaching myself about food. I joined Weight Watchers for a short period, and started some very short walking routes with my boyfriend. After I lost the first 60 pounds, which took about 10 months, Ken and I got married.
Shortly after that, I started long-distance walking with a close friend of mine who was a lifetime runner, and over a year or so, lost another 20 pounds from adding in the exercise and learning a little more about nutrition. I was quite happy hovering around 175 pounds for quite a few years.
At this weight, I was also able to start running, and I completed my first 10K Run at University of British Columbia, known as the Longest Day Road Race, in 2011. I knew from experience that the lighter I got, the easier everything would be, especially running. I was always searching for ways to tighten the belt.
That’s when I turned to Facebook challenges, so people could hold me accountable. My first weight loss one was between a group of friends in March 2014. I lost 18 pounds in 30 days, and I learned so much from it.
At the time, I was 43 years old, and I kept at it until I went from 175 pounds to sitting between 137 pounds (my race weight) and 145 pounds. I am happy to still do running challenges, as long as it provides me a place to stay accountable and encourages or inspires others to lose weight. I think the motivation comes from being part of a likeminded group and knowing that people are watching. I want people to know it can be done.
[Discover how to run 10, 50, or even 100 pounds off with Run to Lose.]
Nutrition is number one for me when it comes to staying health. I lost the initial 60 pounds by just changing my diet. Each significant loss of weight or physical improvement is marked by changes in my nutrition. I have found that it’s actually easier to maintain weight when I am not as rigorous with my exercise. However, I love to move, so I just have to keep that quote, “You can’t outrun your fork,” in mind.
Also, I’m an avid nutrition and fitness tracker. I have been keeping food diaries, whether written in a Moleskine diary or now on MyNetDiary for more than 20 years. Same with fitness: I used to track on a calendar, but nine years ago, I joined Runkeeper. I love seeing how far I have come and setting goals for the new year—like running the NYC Marathon in 2018 and running the Chicago Marathon this October.
I often have people ask me how I did it, and I encourage them to take the pressure off by focusing on nutrition first until they see results. You need to learn how to eat and then add exercise.
If you are obese like I was, the time is better spent in the kitchen than the gym. Often people are trying to do it all at once. Then they are overwhelmed and give up. It’s what you do every day that counts. People fall off the wagon and give up just before they see real results. They need to just stay on the wagon more than off and they will win.
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