Shelley A. Sonnenberg

Author who has lost 159 pounds and written a book about it!

Weight Loss: Do You Want It So Much You Can Taste It? — May 5, 2015

This photo is of me my and my father. He likes to say that I pursue my weight-loss goals like Olympic Athletes pursue gold medals!

Weight Loss: Do You Want It So Much You Can Taste It?

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This photo is of my mother and me prior to me starting my weight-loss program. I weighed about 281 pounds here.
This photo is of my mother and me prior to me starting my weight-loss program. I weighed about 281 pounds here.

When people find out that I have recently lost 159 pounds in fourteen months they often ask how I was able to stick to my program so successfully. They usually are also very surprised when I tell them about my method, because it had very little to do with will power and everything to do with setting goals and priorities.

The following is a quote from chapter five of my upcoming book, No Salads Required! How I Lost 159 Pounds without Salads, Celery, Sit-Ups or Surgery and How You Can Too! which will be available from Amazon.com and other stores in late summer or early fall of 2015 :

“The secret to following any dream is to make it a priority. My father was right when he said that I pursued my dream to lose weight like Olympic athletes pursue gold medals. For the first time in my life, I wanted to have all the benefits of slenderness more than the things I would have to give up in order to have them. I knew that if I lost enough weight I would be able to wear prettier clothes, find a better job, and maybe even get married someday, and I wanted all these things with a passion big enough to move heaven and earth to make those dreams possible.

One of the things people often say when they hear about my weight loss is ‘Wow! You must have a lot of will power.’ I smile when they say this, because actually will power is only a small part of it. Walking away from wrong foods and filling your refrigerator and cupboards with the right foods has a lot more to do with focusing on what you want most than resisting what you are not supposed to have. I found that the more I imagined how I would look as a thin person and the things I wanted to do when I reached that goal, the easier it was to eat the right things.”

I should also mention here that this same passion motivated me to exercise every single day no matter what! I loved the process of reshaping myself! It was extremely exciting and I really did want to reach my goal much more than I wanted anything else. I was also very curious to see how I would look as a thin person. The last time I was thin I was in the 1980s when I was in high school, so I had no idea how I would look as a mature adult with a nice figure. Watching myself shrink was really fascinating and I have to say I really do like how my figure has turned out, but it has taken some time to get used to being “the new me.”

This is my mother and me holding up the size 4X pants that I no longer wear. Notice how much we look alike!
This is my mother and me holding up the size 4X pants that I no longer wear. Notice how much we look alike!

I particularly like the fact that I look a great deal like my mom and a lot of people commented on the resemblance shortly after I reached my weight-loss goal. At that time Mom and I were wearing our hair in almost the same style, which made our resemblance even more striking. One day when I was exercising at the gym, I was using free weights and was looking in a mirror with the idea of checking my form when for a split second I found myself looking at this short, slim brunette and asking “What’s Mom doing here?” Then I realized I was looking at me! I only remember that happening once, but it was an unforgettable moment!

Even now when I am maintaining my weight, I find good habits and setting priorities to still be really important. I have worked so hard to get my new figure, the last thing in the world I want to do is lose it! I still like high-calorie foods, but not enough to undo all my hard work, so I very seldom eat them.

Now for those of you who still believe will power is the best way to lose weight, I will confess that I have experimented with diets based on will power in the past, but they never worked for me. Every time I saw something I should not eat, but desperately wanted, I would try to pull myself away from the “bad food” and persuade myself not to eat it. That never lasted very long! You see what I used to think of as “will power” could better be described as “won’t power.” I would say to myself, “I won’t eat this and I won’t eat that even though I desperately want to and really don’t know why I am putting myself through all this misery.”

Of course, Sooner or later I would end up eating whatever it was I wanted to eat. You see, if you don’t have big dreams and exciting goals to work toward, all a “will power” plan works out to be is a deprivation program and who wants to feel deprived? I can tell you, I didn’t! That’s one of the reasons I stayed overweight for thirty-two years!  It wasn’t until I came up with an entirely new approach that I was finally successful in making my weight-loss dreams come true.

So are you ready to try a new approach to weight loss? All you need to start is a pen, some paper and your wild imagination! Just try the following steps and you will be well on your way:

  1. Imagine “the new you” when you reach your weight-loss goal. What size do you want to wear? How will you look? Who will be surprised and amazed when they see you at your new size?  Let your imagination soar and write down a full description of yourself as you wish to be.
  2. List some things you want to do when you reach your new size. They can be as simple as going to a restaurant and sitting comfortably in a booth or as expensive as flying around the world without the need for a seatbelt extender or to buy more than one airplane seat.  Something I really enjoy being able to do now that am thinner is to trim my own toenails easily. I also like being able to bend over comfortably and tie my own shoes.
  3. List the new opportunities that might be available if you lost weight. Some examples include new career options, a happier love life and the energy to learn something you always wanted to try such as ballroom dancing, skiing or tennis.
  4. Once you have fully visualized the new life that you could have available to you as a thin person, calculate how much weight you would really need to lose in order to get there. Don’t be afraid even if the result is a big number! Remember I lost 159 pounds! Just figure out what your weight-loss goal would be and write it down.
  5. Now write down how very much you want to achieve your goal! Do you desire it so much that you want to taste success more than any food that would keep you from reaching it? If you do, you have already taken the first step. Just keep going that direction and you will eventually wind up where you want to be!
Tips on Providing Support to a Loved One Who Is on a Weight-loss Journey — May 1, 2015

This photo of my mother and I was taken by my father this month. I like to refer to my parents as "my two best friends". They are my biggest fans and supporters.

Tips on Providing Support to a Loved One Who Is on a Weight-loss Journey

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Losing weight is one of the most popular topics on the planet today. It seems like almost everybody is thinking about it, talking about it, reading about it, blogging about it and tweeting about it, but very few people are actually successfully doing it.

Do you know somebody who both needs to lose weight and has a desire to do it, but can’t quite make any program that they try work? Maybe they need some help and maybe you are just the person to provide it! Now, I know some of you reading this are saying, “But what can I do? I am not a doctor, or a nutritionist or a personal trainer! What could I possibly do to help?” Actually, there are numerous things that can be done to assist a loved one on their weight-loss journey that do not require special training or a college degree! This is especially true if the person who is working toward reaching a weight-loss goal lives with you!

This photo of my father and me was taken before I began my weight-loss program. I weighed about 281 pounds at that time.
This photo of my father and me was taken before I began my weight-loss program. I weighed about 281 pounds at that time.

I recently lost 159 pounds during a fourteen month period and one of the things that really contributed to my success was the ongoing help of my family and friends during the whole journey and even beyond that, as I have been working to maintain my weight.

Here are some things you can do that would definitely be appreciated:

  1. Start a support group. This group can be comprised of friends, family or both. My parents and I formed a support group the day I began my program and we still support each other now! The best part about supporting each other is that everyone wins.  Not only did I lose weight, but they did too!
  2.  Listen to the person who is on a weight-loss program and discuss what is going one in their lives. Many people eat as a form of comfort and in order to stop doing that they need to develop relationships with people they can confide in, discuss positive solutions to problems and also just have fun!
  3.  Volunteer to help your loved one with some of their daily chores such as house cleaning, grocery shopping and cooking for them so they can have time to exercise.  You don’t have to help them every single day to be appreciated. Just do what you can!
  4. If the person who is working at losing weight has children, you can really do a great deal to assist them by helping with child care. Many parents, especially single mothers find a starting an exercise program practically impossible because of the needs of their kids. You can volunteer to care for the children yourself so the parent can go to the gym alone or you can pay for a babysitter so they can go to the gym with you. Either way, this can be extremely helpful!
  5. Speaking of gyms, you can also help pay for your loved one’s membership if they are facing financial difficulties. If they want to go to the same gym that you do, ask about what it would cost to add the person trying to lose weight to your membership. Sometimes you can get a discount this way.
  6. Help your rapidly shrinking loved one with acquiring new clothes! One of the biggest challenges during a weight-loss program, especially a successful one is figuring out what you are going to wear when you are changing sizes so often. Buying new clothing all the time can be really expensive and before you know it, whatever you just bought is already too big! One of the really wonderful things my Mom and several ladies I know from church did was to clean out their closets and give me free gently used clothes in the size I was wearing at the time. They took turns doing this as the need arose and I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am for that! Not only did they save me a tremendous amount of money, but I was also reminded how much I was loved and supported every time I opened my closet! I especially appreciated help with acquiring exercise cloths. It was nice to feel well dressed while I was working out!
  7. If the person you are supporting lives with you, volunteer to keep tempting foods that they are trying to abstain from like ice cream out of the house while they are actively trying to lose weight. This does not mean that you can’t sneak out for an ice-cream cone or other sweet treat at a restaurant when they are not with you. Just don’t wave the tempting foods under their nose!
  8. If you really want to be a hero, volunteer to follow the same food plan your loved one on the weight-loss program is following! This is especially effective if you are living together, because you will find it’s easier to shop and cook meals when everyone in your house is eating the same things and also your loved one will feel really cared for and supported. This works just as well whether you are following a pre-planned program from a weight-loss book or designing you own program. In my case, I designed my own weight-loss program and then wrote a book about it after my program was successful. The title of the book is No Salads Required! How I Lost 159 Pounds without Salads, Celery, Sit-Ups or Surgery and How You Can Too! and it will be available to order from Amazon.com and other places in either late summer or early fall of 2015.
  9. Gather your support group together at least once a week to discuss how your weight-loss program is going and what you can do to help each other. If you are all following a program from the same weight-loss book, it might be helpful to discuss one chapter of the book every week. This not only will give you something interesting to discuss, but it will help you keep motivated to stay on the program and to read the whole book! Some weight-loss books, including mine have a discussion guide in the back designed to stimulate thoughtful conversations about the information the book covers. These talks can be both and helpful and entertaining!
  10. Think of your own ways to help! The ideas I have listed here are just the tip of the iceberg! Use your creativity and extend your hand of help in whatever way is needed!  If you are not sure what the person needs, ask them! You are not only offering love and support by doing so, you could also be helping to save their life!
As Time Goes By: Tips on Maintaining Your New Figure Once You Have It — April 28, 2015

This photo was taken just a few days ago. I love being at a healthy weight and I am willing to work hard to stay there!

As Time Goes By: Tips on Maintaining Your New Figure Once You Have It

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I recently lost 159 pounds in fourteen months and I have to say it’s great to have a new figure! I feel great, have lots of energy and can wear clothing styles and sizes that I could have only dreamed of wearing just a couple years ago.  I started what I call the “intense phase” of my weight-loss program in January of 2013 and completed it in February of 2014.  From then I have been in what I refer to as the “maintenance phase.”

This picture was taken a few months prior to the start of my weight-loss program. I weighed 281 pounds at that time.
This picture was taken a few months prior to the start of my weight-loss program. I weighed 281 pounds at that time.

Maintaining a new figure once you get one can be especially challenging, because unlike the original period of time when a person is actively losing weight, which usually has a start date and an end date, maintaining your new figure is supposed to last a lifetime! Of course this means that the newly slim person needs to figure out how to live through all of life’s ups and downs and still remained reasonably disciplined where food and exercise is concerned.  So far I have done pretty well, but my journey has already had several bumps in the road and if I know anything about life I can only guess that there are more up ahead.

The good news is that there are also plenty of days in life when things are going reasonably well and if I just stick to the good habits I put in place when I was actively losing the weight I should be able keep most of the weight off all the time and also re-lose any pounds I temporarily pick up due to a problem like an illness or injury that keeps me from exercising for a short while. I did have a couple of such situations already in the last few months and I am happy to say that I am feeling fit and fine and am back to my exercise program full blast.

Another type of problem that arises from time to time on a maintenance program is the temptation to overeat due to emotionally charged events that can arise in one’s life. I find the best way to deal with these things is to turn to God, friends and family instead of the refrigerator! One of the nice things about modern technology is that almost everyone we know can be reached by phone or social media even if they are physically far away. There are few things as comforting as talking to somebody who loves you and is willing to stand by you no matter what problems you are facing! Sometimes I still catch myself eating when I should be praying or phoning somebody, but I have gotten a whole lot better in this department and it’s my goal to someday master that completely!

Social eating can also be really challenging when a person is trying to maintain a figure because sooner or later almost everyone finds themselves at a wedding, birthday party or holiday event where cake and other special foods are being served and it’s both pleasant and polite to eat some of it. Do you want my advice on how to handle that situation? I say, “Go to the event, eat the food and enjoy yourself!” Of course I would also suggest that you use some common sense about how much you eat of everything, but if the only time you eat  high-calorie items is when you attend a special event like a wedding you probably are not going to gain so much weight that you can’t easily re-lose it once the day is over. Of course, if you are a busy and successful professional wedding planner and eat wedding cake at every wedding you plan for somebody, you may run into some difficulties, but for everyone else the occasional sweet treat at a special event is nothing to worry about.

I have also learned that exercising regularly is extremely helpful when it comes to keeping the weight off.  Now, I understand that every person reading this has their own situation to consider, but in my case I have found that if I don’t schedule doing an exercise I enjoy almost every day, I am going to start gaining weight again. I am 5’2” with very tiny bones and my natural metabolism is extremely slow. In order to kick my body into high enough gear to stay in shape I need to exercise at least a couple hours most days.  On the other hand, I have a couple friends who very seldom exercise and they never gain an ounce. This does not seem fair, but it’s the way it is! Someday when I get to heaven I hope to ask God about why he made people so different in this regard, but for the time being I find it better to stop wondering about things like that and just get moving!

Fortunately, I have discovered there are several exercises I really enjoy. My favorite is fitness walking. I do it with a friend whenever I can, but I also walk alone outside or on my treadmill. There is also an exercise bike in our house that I have just started riding on a regular basis and I enjoy using that too. My secret for enjoying both of those machines is that I never get on either one without bringing along my little CD player that also has a radio in it. I love playing music while I exercise, because it not only makes the time go by fast, but it also can inspire me to exercise more enthusiastically. This is especially true when I am on the exercise bike. Fast music really helps me move my feet!

I also have a gym membership and I enjoy going down to the gym and lifting weights once in a while. My goal is to go down there a little more, but I am still figuring out how to work that into my busy schedule. When I figure that out I will tell you all about it in a future post! Meanwhile, I am happy to say that it looks like “the new me” is here to stay!

I have found the whole process of transformation from my initial weight-loss to my current maintenance program to be much more fun than I ever thought possible during the 32 years that I struggled with obesity. I wish I had started this program a whole lot sooner! Of course, one of the reasons I have been having such a good time was that I designed my own weight-loss plan with the intent of enjoying it. This was especially important during the first thirteen months when I was losing the weight initially.  I ate only healthy foods that I wanted to eat and did only exercise that I liked to do.  I share my whole program in my upcoming book, No Salads Required! How I Lost 159 Pounds Without Salads, Celery, Sit-Ups or Surgery and How You Can Too! This book contains my personal story, lists of recommended foods, 30 suggested meal combinations, insights on how to succeed, poetry just for fun and much more! You will be able to order this book from Amazon.com and other stores starting in either late August or early September of 2015.

The Power of Positive Shrinking: How an Upbeat Attitude Can Help You Lose Weight — April 25, 2015

This picture of me with the "Before" photo that I use when I do motivational speaking was taken by my father on April, 24, 2015.

The Power of Positive Shrinking: How an Upbeat Attitude Can Help You Lose Weight

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There are many names for a cheerful outlook. Norman Vincent Peale called it “positive thinking”, my parents called it a “good attitude” and a famous song referred to it as “the sunny side of life.”  The truth is that whatever name you give it, a positive attitude can do wonders for any weight-loss program and often makes the difference in whether or not a person is successful in reaching their weight-loss goals.

Recently I lost 159 pounds in fourteen months and I have to say that one of the most important things I did to lose the weight was to believe that my goals, though large, were completely possible to attain.  I actually think this attitude was even more important than the food I ate, the exercise I did or the weight-loss and nutrition products I used, because even though all those things made a huge difference, I would not have made it through one day of my program if I wasn’t enjoying it!

 Now, I do admit that when I first considered starting a weight-loss program I was a bit unsure if I wanted to undertake such a big project, but once I embraced the idea I did so wholeheartedly and never looked back! One of the first things I did to inspire myself to think positively was to write a simple, but powerful slogan that I said over and over to myself and anyone else who would listen. It was: “I am going to eat and exercise like a skinny person until my body figures it out!” I knew that if I was going to lose weight, my lifestyle that had caused me to become morbidly obese had to be abandoned and what better way to do that than to adopt the type of lifestyle that millions of skinny people were practicing successfully?

I also committed myself to the idea that my weight-loss program was exciting and that it was going to be lots of fun to watch myself transform into a healthy woman with a new figure. My program was in no way a punishment for eating unwisely in the past or a deprivation program that somebody else was forcing me into. Quite the opposite!

In fact, as I have mentioned in a previous blog post, I designed my weight-loss program to include only healthy foods that I liked to eat and exercise that I enjoyed doing! For example, I really am not much of a salad eater and I don’t like celery at all, so I decided not to put either of those items on my daily weight-loss menu. Instead, I ate foods like barbequed spare ribs, corn on the cob, apples and grapes!  If you think that sounds like a whole lot of fun, you are right! It was!  I was watching myself shrink and also was walking around with a big smile on my face. I had never enjoyed trying to lose weight before, but fortunately there is a first time for everything!

I tell my whole story about my weight loss and the specific details of exactly what I did to lose the weight in my upcoming book, No Salads Required! How I Lost 159 Pounds without Salads, Celery, Sit-Ups or Surgery and How You Can Too! The book will be available to order from Amazon.com and other stores at either the end of August or the beginning of September 2015. I hope that everyone who buys it and tries my program has as much fun as I did!

A positive attitude is also a very important part of keeping a healthy figure once you get one! I have been maintaining my new weight for over a year now and one of the ways I do it is to remind myself of all the good things I enjoy about being thin like being able to easily cut my own toenails, tie my own shoes, bend over without getting nauseous and fit into any restaurant booth or airplane seat I want to sit in without a problem.

This photo of my mother and I was taken just a few months before I started my weight-loss program. I weighed 281 pounds here.
This photo of my mother and I was taken just a few months before I started my weight-loss program. I weighed 281 pounds here.

Now for those of my readers who have never been extremely overweight these little blessings may not sound like much, but trust me when I say that I am thrilled every day to be able to do these things again. I am 5’2” with very tiny bones, yet I weighed 281 pounds when I started my weight-loss program and my hips measured 5 feet around. I understand what it’s like to have a serious weight problem and I also understand that if I don’t keep up a good attitude about living a healthy lifestyle I could end up in that position again.

Fortunately, I am having a wonderful time eating the healthy foods I came to love while I was losing weight and I am  also enjoying learning to prepare new healthy recipes. My exercise program is a delight too. In our house, we have both a treadmill and an exercise bike and I enjoy using both of them, but recently I have returned to outdoor fitness walking. I have a neighbor who I walk with several times a week and we really enjoy both taking care of ourselves and having someone to talk to while we do it. Sometimes her husband joins us and we often see neighbors who are outside walking dogs or working in their yards and we talk to them too. We also often see other neighbors who are fitness walking, jogging or riding bicycles and several of them have told us that watching my transformation and seeing my friend and me walking regularly has given them the hope and inspiration to begin their own exercise program. If this keeps up soon everyone in our neighborhood will have a weight-loss story to tell!

So now I have a question for you: Are you considering starting a weight-loss program?  If you are I want to encourage you to make sure it’s a program that is both based on the principles of healthy living and also one that you can enjoy every day that you are following it  If you choose a program like that and stick to it cheerfully, before you know it, you will not only have achieved your weight-loss goals, but you will find yourself following other exciting dreams as well! What’s next for you after weight-loss? There are all kinds of opportunities that you could use your newly acquired positive attitude to attain. All you have to do is pick the ones you want and go after them until positive thinking and living becomes a regular part of your life. Once that happens you will be able to join my friends and me as we joyfully shout, “My future is so bright, I have to wear shades!”

My future is so bright that I have to wear shades!
My future is so bright, I have to wear shades!
Social Media Mania! — April 22, 2015

Lately I have been learning more about social media than I ever expected to and have been enjoying every minute of it!

Social Media Mania!

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These days I am fascinated with Facebook, learning to love LinkedIn, becoming passionate about Pinterest, excited about email and typing out my Twitter tweets with great enthusiasm! I am also finding my blogging experiences to be both beautiful and beneficial and as a result I am going wild about WordPress!

The reason I have taken such a great interest in all this is that the marketing experts at my publishing company have really encouraged me to promote my upcoming weight-loss book, No Salads Required! on social media, so I have been learning all I can during the last few weeks on how to use the above Web sites to their fullest advantage. It has been an intense and entertaining process, which I know will only get more exciting the more I learn and the more social media sites I add to my marketing plan.

Of course, I do know that all the Web sites I have mentioned in the opening paragraph have been around for a long time and that some of my readers may be wondering why a person my age, who likes using computers isn’t already an expert each of those social media hot spots.

Well, to be honest, I did know quite a bit about Facebook and Yahoo e-mail, because I had been using them both for years, but purely in a social manner. I went online when I felt like it, sent messages, posted a few photos, played some games, chatted with friends who lived far away and basically just enjoyed the entertaining side of social media. As for Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest, I did have accounts on those sites, which I had signed up for at the invitation of friends, but I couldn’t remember any of the passwords I had set up for them. Also, I hadn’t even completed filling out my online profiles on each one, let alone exploring what these various sites had to offer. I guess I just had never gotten around to them. As for blogging, that was completely uncharted territory, but once I started it I wondered why it had taken me so long to do so.

Actually, once I got my business accounts up and running on all these Web sites I immediately understood why social media has become such an extremely popular way to advertise. It allows me to promote my book to potential readers all over the world and to work anytime and anywhere I like as long as I have a computer device and access to the internet. Not bad! Currently, I am using free methods to promote my book online, because I am still a “starving writer”, but as the release date for No Salads Required! gets closer, I may take advantage of some of the more modestly priced social media advertising options just to be sure that I get the word out to everyone I can.

This is a photo from one of my Facebook albums. It was taken prior to my 159 pound weight-loss.
This is a photo from one of my Facebook albums. It was taken prior to my 159 pound weight-loss.

Another thing my internet marketing program has done is give me the joy of reconnecting with old friends and sharing the news about both my 159 pound weight-loss and my new career as an author to people who have not heard the news until now. The best part is that not only are they happy for me, but they can’t wait to buy a copy of my book!

I am also finding out that there is a tremendous amount of helpful information available online for business people and that if I take the time to read most of it I will probably learn just as much for free as I would if I went back to college for a few classes in business.

I think the Web site that has surprised me the most in this regard is LinkedIn. Until a couple weeks ago, I really knew nothing about this site, other than it had “something to do will business”. Of course, now that I have explored LinkedIn a lot more, I realize that saying this website has “something to do with business is like saying the ocean has “something to do with water”! LinkedIn offers helpful information and discussion groups on a huge variety of business topics and also the opportunity for users to put together an online profile that showcases their professional skills, but that’s not all! Linked in is also fun! You can join a discussion groups for humor writers, cat lovers, people interested in the movie industry and groups for almost any other topic you can name. Also, anyone on LinkedIn is welcome to start discussion groups of their own. Not only do these groups give participants the opportunity to have lively discussions on subjects of mutual interest, they also help likeminded people find one another.

Recently, I had the privilege of participating in an amusing online discussion in the humor writers group about forgetting things. I read what the other participants had posted, chuckled and then posted a quote from my paternal grandfather, who said he “didn’t know if his memory was getting worse or his forgetter was getting better!” This post received some very positive feedback from two people I had never met before. They are strangers right now, but someday we may become friends.

I have also had positive experiences with the other social media sites I am using and perhaps I will discuss them in future posts. For now, I will just say that social media has given me a whole world of opportunities that I did not realize were open to me until now and I am very thankful indeed!

Book Update: My upcoming book, No Salads Required! How I Lost I59 pounds without Salads, Celery, Sit-Ups or Surgery and How You Can Too!” will be available to order from Amazon.com and other stores at the end of August or the beginning of September of 2015.

Leadership By Example Has A Powerful Influence! — April 17, 2015

Here I am with my parents, who are my favorite role models and also my two best friends!

Leadership By Example Has A Powerful Influence!

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What comes to your mind when you think of the word “leader”?  The President of the United States? The CEO of a major company? Perhaps somebody who has made a name for themselves in entertainment or sports? These are all examples of people with powerful worldwide influence both professionally and personally.  Almost everything they do makes the news and millions of people follow their good or bad examples, depending on what lifestyle they are leading. This is a lot of responsibility! Do you think you could handle it?  Perhaps you are saying to yourself “I’m glad I’m not famous!”

The thing is, whether you are famous or not you probably have a much bigger sphere of influence than you realize. You influence all the people you know every day by the decisions you make, the things you say, the way you spend your money, the car you drive and even the way you handle your love life! People are watching you at home, in your neighborhood, at church, at your children’s soccer games and everywhere else you go. Also, if you are involved in social media you could be regularly influencing people all over the world who don’t even know you personally.

This means every one of us is in leadership! We may not be mentioned on the news regularly or have our names on a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but everyone’s life has a strong influence on somebody.  The problem is those of us who have been living in relative obscurity often think of our lives as “private” and that what we do is “our own business”. However, what we do can inspire other people to follow in our footsteps whether we want them to or not! The good news is that we can really help people by the way we live our daily lives.

Perhaps the best examples I know of positive leadership are my parents, Mike and Gail Sonnenberg.  Not that either of them is an international celebrity. Far from it! Neither of them has ever run for public office, acted in a film, recorded a hit song or been the star of even one YouTube video. Yet, both of them have consistently lived lives of Christian faith, American patriotism, and responsible behavior.  As a result, their lives have had powerful influence on the members of our family, the people they have gone to church with, the people they have worked with and even people who came by our house trying to sell us something.

In fact, one of the main reasons I live the way I do today is because my parents have been such excellent examples to me year in and year out. Not that I have always lived as wisely as they have, but these days I make it a point to follow their examples as well as I can. Living like that brings me great happiness and also save me a lot of trouble, grief and embarrassment!

One the best examples of my parent’s consistency over the years is their faithful church attendance. The only reason they are ever absent from the pews is serious illness. Even when they ran a business that required them to work on Sundays they figured out a method so that they could be faithful to both their God and their business. Each Sunday one of them would attend the Sunday morning service while the other one worked and then they would switch places on Sunday evening so that the person who missed the Sunday morning service could go to church on Sunday night. This did not go unnoticed by anyone who knew them, even my cousin Larry, who is a professing atheist. Larry once said, “Uncle Mike could make the devil feel guilty for not going to church!”

I weight 281 pounds when this photo was taken. At this point I had no clue that I was about to become a role model for weight-loss!
I weighed 281 pounds when this photo was taken. At this point I had no clue that I was about to become a role model for weight-loss!

Sometimes a person can become a role model completely by accident!  I live in a neighborhood of 98 houses that are built on a half mile circle of road.  It’s an excellent place to do fitness walking and during many of the fourteen months that I was losing 159 pounds I made it a point to walk around that circle 20 times a day for a total of ten miles. I did this faithfully for several months until I was able to get a treadmill and continue my fitness program at home.

Now I need to underscore that I was not making any effort to influence anybody! I just knew I had a lot of weight to lose and I wanted to get rid of it as fast as I could and that meant sticking to my fitness program regardless of the weather, what day of the week it was and what I was missing on TV!  I didn’t let anything get in my way. I stuck to my new plan for healthy eating, took some helpful weight-loss and nutrition supplements and I kept on walking. The result was that I was shrinking before my neighbor’s eyes and the smaller I got the more of my neighbors were joining me on the sidewalk! They also were very interested in everything else I was doing to lose weight.

It was at this point that I suddenly realized that I was in leadership! This struck me as very ironic, because I had started out morbidly obese and was still on my journey to a healthy weight when my new “weight-loss role model” status was thrust upon me. I wasn’t a doctor, a nutritionist or a personal trainer, but I did have one thing going for me: success! Obviously my weight-loss program was working and that was all the credentials I needed for people to be interested in my story. In fact, not only did several of my neighbors start their own weight-loss programs because of my influence, they also picked up their phones and started calling friends and family members all over the globe and sharing my weight-loss story with people who had never met me!  Before I knew it, my story was in nine countries and once I posted my “Before” and “After” photos on Facebook that number of countries increased to twelve!

My neighbors were not the only people who noticed my transformation. I also was getting a lot of attention at work, church and everywhere else I went where people recognized me and noticed my new figure. As my weight continued to go down some of my friends started encouraging me to write a book. At first I was unsure about the idea, but eventually they persuaded me and I sat down in front of my computer and began to write.

I am now on my second year of keeping the weight off and the name of the book I wrote about my weight-loss journey is No Salads Required! How I Lost 159 Pounds without Salads, Celery, Sit-Ups or Surgery and How You Can Too!  It contains my personal story, the details of what I did to lose the weight, lessons I learned along the way and what I am doing to remain in shape. I have worked hard to make it both informative and entertaining and I hope my readers really enjoy it. This book will be available to order from Amazon.com and other stores in either late August or early September of 2015.

So here are some questions for  you to contemplate: What kind of example are you living? If somebody lives their lives the way you do what will happen to them? Will their lives be better because they have met you? These are important things to consider, because even when you think nobody is interested in your activities, in reality there is always somebody who is.

Losing Weight on Your Own Terms is Not Only Possible, It’s the Only Way To Succeed! — April 15, 2015

This is my mother and me holding up the size 4X pants that I no longer wear. Notice how much we look alike!

Losing Weight on Your Own Terms is Not Only Possible, It’s the Only Way To Succeed!

/Shelley A Sonnenberg/7 Comments
This photo was taken just days before I started my weight loss program. I weighed 281 pounds.
This photo was taken just days before I started my weight loss program. I weighed 281 pounds.

What  inspires you to lose weight? Do you have an upcoming occasion for which you want to look especially good? Do you want to get the attention of that special someone or to be given opportunities that are usually only given to thin people? Do you just want to feel healthier?

There are many reasons people want to lose weight today, but unfortunately the pervasive myths in our culture concerning weight-loss often discourage people from even getting started. In my upcoming book, No Salads Required! How I Lost 159 Pounds without Salads, Celery, Sit-Ups or Surgery and How You can Too! I address four of the reasons that I was obese for 32 years. I really did not want to live on salads or celery! I had spent too many years eating much more delicious foods and I was unwilling  to resign myself to that menu! I also did not want to do sit-ups. I know that some TV fitness trainers swear by them, but honestly when a person is as morbidly obese as I was when I started my weight-loss program, sit-ups were an exercise in nausea!

As for weight-loss surgeries, I knew they were not right for me either. I realize some people may find them helpful, but in my case, the problem was not in my stomach. The problem was in my brain! I was using food as comfort and entertainment and ignoring the obvious fact that somebody as short and fine-boned as I was should not be eating high calorie foods in large quantities. In my book I also mentioned my naturally slow metabolism and said that though God had created my body to work like an economy car,  I had spent years fueling myself up like an eighteen wheeler! Obviously l needed to make a change, but how?

The first thing I needed to do was start a weight-loss program and make it a priority. In No Salads Required! I shared how I reached the decision to do this, as well as how I came to the understanding that if I was going to succeed at weight-loss, my program had to be on my own terms. For me, that meant designing my own weight-loss plan that included eating only foods that I enjoyed and doing only exercise that I liked to do and sticking to that program tenaciously until I reached my goals. This may sound wild, but it worked beautifully for me. I lost the 159 pounds I needed to lose in fourteen months!

I think approaching weight-loss on one’s own terms is so important that I encourage my readers to do the same. No Salads Required! contains a chapter with lists of recommended foods and suggestions for readers on how to design their own meals as well as permission to choose only the foods on the lists that they enjoy. I did also put together a chapter full of suggested meal combinations for people who wanted help getting started and who would appreciate specific recommendations. However, even in that chapter, I suggested my readers pick the meals they like and customize them as needed with other foods on the recommended lists according to their own preferences and what they find currently available in the grocery stores.

Fortunately, due to international trade, there are now many more fruits and vegetables available in grocery stores throughout the year than there used to be. This makes shopping much easier.  Also, my readers with green thumbs might enjoy planting and growing some of their own fresh produce. Gardening is not only a fun and healthy activity, but it also opens the door for people to enjoy varieties of fruits and vegetables that are not commonly sold in stores. A few years ago one of my friends decided to grow tomatoes, but not just any tomatoes. She planted a type of orange ones that I had never seen or heard of until she told me about them. Once those tomatoes began to ripen they were all she could talk about. I have never talked to anyone so delighted about eating tomatoes in all my life! She really enjoyed them and that made her extra effort to grow them completely worthwhile.

When it comes to exercise, I also encourage my readers to set up a program that is pleasant for them. After all, if a person plans to start doing something on a regular basis it makes sense to be sure they will enjoy it! For readers with problems  exercising due to injuries  I suggested in No Salads Required! that they seek the guidance of their doctor and possibly a physical therapist as well. It’s amazing how many safe and effective  methods there are for  injured people to exercise! A few years ago one of my friends was facing serious health problems that were complicated by morbid obesity. While she was in the hospital for treatment of these conditions,  her doctor referred her to a specialist, who helped her set up a manageable exercise program with the goal of building her strength. I was completely amazed! What I learned from her story is that if there is a will there is a way!  If that woman could find a way to exercise in her extremely  difficult circumstances, then all the rest of us can find an exercise plan that will work for us if we seek the right advice and make the effort to follow it.

So now it’s up to you! Are you ready to chase your weight-loss dreams on your terms? No Salads Required! will be available to order from Amazon.com and other stores in late August or early September of 2015 and I encourage you to buy it, read it and it discover how fun and exciting weight-loss can be. In the meantime I will be sharing “sneak previews” on this blog on a regular basis to give you a taste of what’s to come. I also will be sharing entertaining stories about my life as a writer and what I am doing to maintain my new figure now that I have it. Stay tuned!