Norfolk, VA – News 3 is taking action for your health in 2017.
If you are looking for motivation to get active and make 2017 your healthiest year yet, there is a long list of success stories right here in the Hampton Roads area.
Kathleen Williams Ross lost 229 pounds
Kathleen Williams Ross tipped the scales at 409 pounds.
"I turned to food," said the Smithfield, Virginia mother, who has battled weight issues her entire life. "That`s what made me happy in life."
After having her son, Ross said she starting thinking more about her own health.
"That was a big factor," she said. "That couldn`t be my only factor. I had to want it for myself as well. You can`t do it for anyone else."
Ross said one day, she decided to take action to save her life.
"Just one day something clicked, and I said you know what? I have to do this. I want to do this," she said.
Ross said she started watching what she was eating by counting calories, usually sticking to 1200 to 1500 calories a day. She also started working out at Anytime Fitness several days a week.
Lindsey Adams lost 140 pounds
Losing weight seemed impossible to Lindsey Adams for years.
“I was 300 plus pounds when I got on the scale at 5’5” and I was 23 years old,” said Adams. "I most definitely thought it was impossible and so I had a scripture. Luke 1:37. With God nothing shall be impossible."
Now, Adams says her 140 pound weight loss is proof that anything is possible.
"My goal is to lose one pound every single week for 30 months," she said of her plan at the beginning of her journey. "I couldn`t think that it was going to happen, but I saw myself losing that one pound, and losing that one pound, which equaled 5 pounds, 10 pounds, 50 pounds, which made the vision clearer along the way."
Adams said she also changed her relationship with food by focusing on calories and portion control. She said she also changed the way she felt about herself.
"Self-affirmations are important. Structure is important," said Adams. "Not a diet. A new lifestyle, and sacrifices along the way."
"You have to start," said Adams. "If you are being motivated, this is the moment! You are being called to something. This isn`t just circumstance or happenstance."
Jack Van lost 130 pounds
At nearly 400 pounds, Jack Van of Chesapeake knew he needed to make a change.
"I was getting close to that embarassing weight where all the jokes start," said Van. "You look at a lawn chair, or a yard chair, and you go, can I sit in that? If I sit in that, is it going collapse? If I go to the beach, can I sit in the plastic chairs?"
On November 1, 2013, Van said enough is enough.
"I just picked a day, November 1, and said it changes today," explained Van to NewsChannel 3 morning anchor Jessica Larche, who has shared her own nearly 90-pound weight loss journey with viewers.
"That day I went into the kitchen and took everything that wasn't healthy and put it in the trash can. I didn't care how much was in the bottle or the box. It was all gone. Filled the house up with nothing but healthy snacks, fruits, veggies, " Van said.
A little more than a year later, Van has shed 130 pounds by making better eating choices and exercising.
Torrie Brennan-Creamer lost 150 pounds
Torrie Brennan-Creamer’s son asked her a question five years ago that changed her life.
“My son, sic years old, came up to me and was like, why are you fat?” the Norfolk mother recalled. “There was nothing, no reason why I was that weight.”
Creamer reached her heaviest weight of 322 pounds when her son asked that question. Five years later, she has lost and kept off 150 pounds. Her journey earned her a spot on the Fall cover of First for Women Magazine.
“I felt like a celebrity,” said the 39-year-old wife and mother of three. “My life is just as chaotic as anybody else, but I took control of my life and I changed it for the best.”
Creamer joined the Body by Ken Bootcamp for Women to kick start her journey, and followed a high-protein, low-carb eating plan to shed the pounds.
“I’m so much happier, healthier,” she said.
