CANTON, N.Y. (WENY) – Researchers have found nearly 40% of Americans have gained weight during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the new year now upon us, people may be looking to lose some weight, and shift to a healthier lifestyle.
In the third and final part of our exclusive series with Guthrie Health examining the lasting impacts of COVID, one local woman shares her success story.
Kristy Fecker’s weight loss journey began in 2019. She had weighed more than 300 pounds and started having some major health issues.
“With that much weight, it’s just — it’s hard to do anything so its…kinda this vicious cycle if you want to where you don’t want to go out because you know you don’t look that good and its hard to get different places and to make it fit,” Kristy says.
“You’re upset because you don’t look good which then makes you eat more to try and make yourself feel better which makes you even bigger — it’s like a snowball effect. And so you end up really kind of hating yourself in a way, and so this journey was one of learning to like myself again,” Kristy adds.
It was then, Kristy decided to take action and make a change. Her journey led her to Guthrie’s Weight Loss Center.
“What I’ve learned from this was one, don’t try to do everything at once. My motto and the hashtag I used on almost all my posts was #onestepatatime, and it’s so true. if you try to change how you’re eating, start exercising and just completely change your whole life style, it’s not going to work, you’re going to fail because you’re basically setting yourself up for failure,” Kristy explains.
“One of the most simple things we can do in this time is to start to eat healthier so making those healthy choices, especially with snacks. We are more curtailed to our homes and so if the snacks that we have aren’t healthy, that’s what we’re going to eat,” says Dr. Verlyn Warringotn, Director of Bariatric Medicine with Guthrie.
For Kristy, the road to a healthy lifestyle lead to a weight loss of about 140 pounds.
“The one image that always came to me throughout this journey was a butterfly and it was because a butterfly starts in the cocoon and its just this ugly caterpillar and then at the end of the journey, it explodes out and its this beautiful butterfly and that’s kind of how I felt during the journey,” says Kristy.
Last March, she had surgery to help tighten her skin from the weight loss, and now, Kristy says she’s feeling her best self.
“Don’t set your goals too high to begin with, make them achievable, and basically just take it one step at a time,” says Kristy.
More information about Guthrie’s Weight Loss Center can be found HERE.
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