Vilma Sujodolsky Lost 136 Pounds: ‘My goal was to do better each day’
Weight-Loss Win is an original Yahoo series that shares the inspiring stories of people who have shed pounds healthfully.
Vilma Sujodolsky is 55 and currently weighs 170 pounds. In 2012, after decades of obesity had a severely negative impact on her life, she decided to find health and happiness after retiring. This is the story of her weight-loss journey.
The turning point
Although I struggled with my weight most of my life, it didn’t get out of control until I reached my 30s. It was then that I started gaining weight steadily until I ended up living in morbid obesity by the time I reached my 40s. If I lost any weight at all, it’d soon pile it back on, plus more. This pattern of gaining then losing and regaining eventually resulted in reaching 300 pounds on the scale, a number I’d see for more than a decade. The heaviest I ever got was 306 pounds in 2010 when I was 49 years old. During my decade in the 300 range, I couldn’t lose weight to save my life. The few times I did, my body immediately snapped back to 300. I called it the “rubber-band effect” and convinced myself that my body just wouldn’t accept any other number. The best I could hope for was that I wouldn’t gain more. The older I got, the more convinced I became that losing weight and keeping it off was an impossible task for me. People also often reminded me that if I didn’t lose the weight by the time I reached my 50s, I had no chance at all of ever losing it. I believed them, but they were wrong. Boy, were they wrong!
By the time I reached my 50s, I was tired, miserable, unhappy, and I felt that my stressful job was killing me. I gave everything to my career, and in so doing, I completely gave up on myself. Working long hours every day rendered me too tired to cook my own meals, and I resorted to the worst possible food choices: fast foods and processed foods, because they were convenient. These foods are fast, easy, fairly cheap but deadly. After all, who had the time and energy to cook healthy meals, plus clean up, after working a 10- or 12-hour day? I lived alone so I didn’t have to worry about taking care of anyone else. Unfortunately, I didn’t take care of myself either.
I recognized early on that I’m an emotional binge eater, meaning I cope with negative emotions with my particular addiction: food. In addition to making bad food choices in general, any time the universe worked against me I dealt with stress, anger, sadness, or depression by reaching for food. My particular downfall is anything with flour dough, with pastries and cakes being at the top of the list. In some ways it’s incredible I “only” reached 300 pounds on the scale with that kind of diet for many years. The bigger I got, the more sedentary I became, particularly because my left knee would scream in pain, and moving at all became difficult because of it.
I just knew that once I retired, the weight would magically fall off me and I’d be healthy and happy. After all, my career was the main culprit. With this in mind, I elected to retire in July 2011, but a year and a half later, in full retirement with no job to worry about, I still weighed 300 pounds, and I was still miserable and unhappy. The only difference was I could no longer blame my job for my demise. At this point, the following questions were constantly floating in my head: This is my life? How did I get here? What happened to me?
My turning point, as it were, was when this question started popping into my head: Where will I be in 10 years?!?! It was then that I realized I was just withering away emotionally and spiritually. I saw no future for myself. So in late 2012, at the age of 52, I begrudgingly started to work on my weight without any hope at all I’d ever succeed. Little did I know then that I would soon become an entirely new person.
The changes
The very first thing I did before worrying about food or exercise was to do some self-analysis. I spent weeks, maybe even months, contemplating why I was a failure when it came to my weight. I have always accomplished anything I wanted to do, except for this one huge task. This was my biggest failure. I started to rehash my past, including dissecting my behavior in how I coped with stress, grief, bad relationships, injuries, and other problems that life always throws at all of us. I started to review what had worked for me and what had failed during any weight-loss program I ever started in the past. It was then that I began to formulate my initial epiphanies that I call my “Duh moments.” Nothing I’ve done that led me to success was new, creative, or groundbreaking. I have no gimmicks, no special tricks. I succeeded through a lot of hard work, trial and error. The information about how to lose weight has always been out there. I just wasn’t listening — until now. I’ve had many epiphanies since, but these first five laid the groundwork that allowed me to ultimately succeed like never before:
I have to change my lifestyle — for the rest of my life.
I realized that any time I changed my eating habits in the past, I viewed it as a temporary fix. I’d lose some weight and then I would return to my old habits. Of course I gained it all back … duh! It never occurred to me that it couldn’t be temporary, that I had to change my habits for the rest of my life. This time I had no choice but to overhaul my entire lifestyle, particularly relating to food.
Never, ever, ever give up!
This was probably the most important concept I’ve adopted. Any time life threw things at me or I reached a dreaded plateau, I’d give up. I’d think, What’s the point? I’m trying so hard and it’s not working. This time around, whenever that question popped into my head, my response was, The point is that if I give up, I’ll gain it all back and I’ll die inside.
I’ve been asked several times if I ever contemplated giving up during this particular journey. I have to say truthfully that at no time did it occur to me to give up. Not once! Yes, I doubted I would be successful, but I never thought of giving up. Even when I was stuck on a 16-month plateau, I never thought of giving up. I was frustrated and annoyed, of course, but instead of wanting to give up, I’d tell myself out loud, “I refuse to give up because what’s the alternative?”
Don’t strive to be perfect because you never will be.
I’m a perfectionist by nature, and if I can’t do something perfectly, I give up. It’s taken me a very long time to understand that I can never be perfect. Nothing is perfect. No one is perfect. It’s a concept that is still incredibly hard for me to accept. I told myself over and over again that I could never be perfect, particularly as it relates to food. Instead, I told myself that I just had to do better. I also realized that I could no longer berate myself if I lost my way. Instead, I had to look at my “failure” as a temporary lapse, and the key was to get back on track immediately.
Just worry about one day at a time, one week at a time.
When I started this journey, I was facing having to lose 130 to 150 pounds! That’s losing the equivalent of an entire human being! Talk about overwhelming and disheartening! It seemed an impossible task considering in 30 years I couldn’t even keep 20 pounds off for long. How in the world was I going to lose 130 to 150? This thought alone was enough to stop me before I even started. I decided to just take it one day at a time and not worry about the overall picture. For some people, setting weight-loss goals works best for them. For me, what works best is to just worry about today. My goal was to do better each day, and eventually the days added up to success.
Once I ingrained these epiphanies in my head, I joined Weight Watchers because I was familiar with the program and I could do the online version, where I didn’t have to go to meetings or drive anywhere to get weighed every week. What I like about Weight Watchers is that you can eat anything you want as long as you stay within your points allowed. Each food is assigned points, and you are given a limit of points per day. It’s an easy program to follow; you just have to track everything you eat and drink. I didn’t like tracking every morsel of food, but what choice did I have? It was the only way to make sure I was practicing portion control.
During the time I was on Weight Watchers, I ate pretty much anything and everything, within reason. I still ate fast foods and processed foods; I still ate cake and pastries, just less frequently than before. During the first seven or eight months, I lost 50 pounds with relative ease despite the fact that I was never perfect on my points. I couldn’t believe it! I had finally left that awful 300 number in the dust and I thought I had everything figured out. I was finally on my way to complete success, and then … I got stuck. Completely stuck on a plateau that would last 16 months! At the time, I had no idea that I’d be stuck for so long (thank God I didn’t know!), but because of my new epiphany to never give up, I could continue my journey versus starting all over again once the plateau was over. Had I given up, which was what I always did before, I would have gained the 50 pounds back plus probably more.
I had been sedentary for a very long time when I joined Weight Watchers. Not only did I always hate exercising, but I was very out of shape and everything was difficult. I told myself to worry about the food first because, for me, starting a new food plan and a new workout program at the same time was too overwhelming. I decided to concentrate on the food until I got a handle on it. The caveat was that once I lost 25 pounds, assuming I could, then I would have to start some form of exercise, which for me meant walking around the neighborhood. It took me about three months to lose the 25 pounds and then I started walking. At first, walking even half a mile was incredibly difficult and took me forever to finish, particularly because my knee hurt so bad. It was difficult and I hated it, but I never gave up. As time passed and I improved, I increased the distance and worried about speed. It took a very long time, but eventually I was walking six to eight miles a day, almost every day. If I had errands to run locally, I’d walk instead of driving my car. As long as what I needed to do fit in my backpack and wasn’t too heavy to carry, I walked.
At this point I decided to join a gym to increase my workouts, perhaps use some weight machines and/or take some of their classes for variety. That’s where I met a young woman, Flaminia “Fla” Fanale, who would change my life. She was a trainer at the gym, and I initially hired her for one 30-minute session per week to get me started. My intention was to hire Fla for only six weeks and then I’d never see her again because I would do my own thing. Soon enough, however, I started training with her twice a week and eventually three times a week.
Fla was the only person who ever told me, “Yes, you can do it!” I had convinced myself a long time before that I couldn’t do much physically and I often said “I can’t” when she wanted me to do something new. She wouldn’t listen and forbade me from saying those words. With time, my exercise program increased. Not only was I walking around the neighborhood and/or the treadmill at the gym almost every day, I was working out with Fla three times a week. She put me on a weight machine circuit I was to complete once a week, and her all-time accomplishment was to get me to attend her spin classes. The first time Fla suggested (well, commanded, really) that I attend her spin class, I was horrified. Me in spin class? Are you kidding? But I went. In fact, I went to spin class every week after that. It took a very long time before I could keep up with the rest of the class, but I kept going and pushing myself.
Fla also put me on MyFitnessPal.com to track my meals, and she monitored my food diary. I was eating 1,500 calories a day (the recommendation from MyFitnessPal), plus another 200 calories if I worked out. As I started to succeed, I canceled Weight Watchers. and with Fla’s help, I lost over 14 pounds in the first month that we worked together — this, after being stuck on a plateau for over a year, during which time I regained 10 of the 50 pounds I initially lost on my own! With Fla’s guidance, I went on to lose another 95 pounds within the next 12 to 14 months.
Fla made me understand the importance of not just staying within my calories every day but choosing the right types of foods as well. I started to research foods, watched documentaries about food and obesity, and learned about lean protein, whole grains, empty calories, sugar, sodium, etc. With just a little tweaking here and there regarding the foods I was eating, all the while increasing my workouts, the weight started to come off quickly even though I’ve never been perfect on my calories.
A funny thing happened during my weight-loss journey. When I started, I knew it’d take me several years to get to my goal, assuming I could even get there in the first place, but what never occurred to me was that I wouldn’t have to wait until I reached my goal before my life improved. I didn’t know it then, but my life was going to improve exponentially during my journey.
When you start losing a few pounds, the changes are subtle. Your clothes fit a little better, you can move a little easier, you might have a bit more energy, and you feel happier mostly because you’re finally doing something about your weight. Perhaps you notice that you fit better in your car and in chairs too. Your confidence might get a little better too.
For those of us who need to lose a considerable amount of weight, however, the more we succeed, the more astounding and life-changing the effects of success are. For example, in my case, I was losing weight so fast that I couldn’t keep clothes for long. I was accustomed to having to buy bigger and bigger sizes as I gained weight, and this was an entirely new experience for me. It was a great “problem” to have, albeit a pricey one. I went from wearing a size 24/26 to a size 10! I wasn’t limited to shopping for clothes at plus-size stores anymore; I could actually shop where “normal” people bought their clothes, and my choices were endless.
By the time I started this weight-loss journey, I was tired all the time even though I slept too much. I was bored but too lethargic to do anything about it. I had no energy whatsoever, and I couldn’t even remember what having energy felt like. As the weight started to disappear, my energy levels went through the roof. In the past, I never much cared about being outside, and I didn’t understand it when people said they liked the outdoors. The new me now loves being out and about. In fact, I become a little depressed when it’s too hot outside to go for a walk or a bike ride.
My left knee had been hurting constantly for many years. There were many times I was bedridden because it hurt so bad. The pain woke me up several times a night too. Just getting around was a painful chore. You never realize how many stairs there are in the world until you have a painful knee! I had surgery on it to repair a torn meniscus years before, but it didn’t seem to fix anything. Carrying that much weight on a fragile knee made everything worse. By the time I lost about 120 pounds, it stopped hurting altogether. There’s nothing more depressing than being in pain all day, every day. Not having to experience pain all the time has been priceless!
As for what motivated me to continue, success is intoxicating. It really is! As the weight started to disappear and my life started to improve, I felt happier than I ever felt before. I was physically stronger and more physically capable than ever before. Also, the reactions from people who saw the results of my efforts were incredible. All of this was incredibly motivating to me.
The after
Being obese, in my opinion, is a form of slow suicide. It affects every aspect of your existence negatively. There is no benefit whatsoever to being obese. It kills your spirit and your soul. It erases your confidence, your self-worth, your goals, your desires, and your future. It stops you from trying new things or engaging in new relationships, not to mention the dread of running into old acquaintances (especially romantic ones) who didn’t know you got so big.
Medically speaking, I’m healthier today than I ever was before. My doctors are elated about my success and several have said, “You have no idea how much you’ve improved your health by losing the weight — no idea, no idea at all!” Actually, I do understand now just how damaging obesity is not only to our appearance but spiritually, emotionally, and medically as well.
The biggest surprise about losing weight that I’ve personally experienced has been motivating other people by just walking in. I did this for myself, and it never occurred to me that being successful on my personal weight-loss journey might benefit other people as well. The more weight I lost, the more people flocked to me wanting to know how I did it so they could do it too. A lot of people thought that I had gastric bypass surgery because to them my weight loss happened overnight. To me, I struggled for every pound I lost; it took a long time and a lot of hard work to accomplish. Motivating other people to improve their lives has been the best reward to me.
The funniest reaction has been when people who haven’t seen me for a while don’t recognize me at all. There have been several occasions when I started talking to someone I know and was met with a blank expression. I could tell they were thinking, Who the heck are you and how do you know my name? Once they realized who they were talking to, their reactions have been priceless!
The maintenance
When I started my journey, I decided I needed to cook all my meals, that way I could control what ingredients I was consuming and it would be easier to track too, first on Weight Watchers and then on MyFitnessPal. I’ve always enjoyed cooking, so this aspect of my journey was easy for me, particularly because being retired, I have the time. There are tons of cookbooks out there that contain healthy, low-calorie recipes, and the Internet provides countless recipes too. I also bought a few vegetarian cookbooks to make different side dishes so that I wouldn’t be limited to eating salads every day.
I like variety so I’m always trying new recipes. Although I don’t deprive myself entirely, my typical diet these days includes brown rice, whole grains (such as quinoa), vegetables, fruits, lean proteins (meat, poultry, and seafood), eggs, unsweetened cashew milk, low-fat cow’s milk, low-fat yogurt, seeds (such as chia or flax), and nuts. I often drink a protein shake, particularly after spin class too.
When I started working with Fla, I only worried about calories. As my journey progressed and I became more knowledgeable about what foods I should eat, I also started to look at protein, sodium, and sugar. MyFitnessPal provides all of these nutritional values so it’s easy to track them. To me, eating right is like a calculus project, and I find it overwhelming so I keep it as simple as possible. If I worry about only calories, the other nutritional values fall into place as I eat better.
The old me ate fried foods, bread, pasta, pizza, cakes, and pastries regularly. The new me eats these very infrequently. I don’t deprive myself of “bad foods”; I just don’t eat them regularly anymore because it’s just not worth it. These days I’m very cognizant of calories, and I consider the nutritional facts to everything I eat. For example, at the store I always gravitate to the bakery section hoping against all hope that I’ll find baked goods that are not too high in calories. I haven’t found them yet! Sometimes I’ll pick up a package of, say, cookies, and it’s astounding how many calories each serving has. When I see that a tiny cookie can have 240 calories, or a muffin can be 400 calories, I decide it’s just not worth it, particularly since I wouldn’t be able to stop at just one serving. At that point, I put the package back and instead I’ll opt for something healthier like yogurt and fruit, which are more filling, healthier, and lower in calories. It’s all about bargaining and compromising with myself.
I grew up drinking sodas, and the only water I ever consumed was in my daily coffee. It’s amazing to me that my organs didn’t shut down years ago because I never drank water before. About six years ago I gave up sodas completely for health reasons, and now I drink water and plenty of it.
Fla moved to New York in January 2016, and I was devastated that I was losing my biggest (and, in some ways, my only) supporter, but I didn’t give up on myself. Instead I hired another trainer, Tunde, and continued training with her three times a week. I also joined a spin studio, and I attend classes three or four times a week. This summer I bought a bicycle and now I ride my bike to run my local errands, usually clocking six to 15 miles a day, depending on the weather, which for me means it’s not too hot outside. I still walk from time to time, but I prefer the bicycle now.
What’s incredible to me is that I went from being completely sedentary for decades to being so active that I have to force myself to take a break to let my body recuperate. Often I ask myself, Who is this Vilma?!
I never skip meals anymore. In the past, I often skipped meals, but then I’d binge later especially late at night. Nowadays I eat three meals a day plus one or two snacks, depending on my calories balance.
When I eat without preplanning, I always blow my calories for that day. Throughout the day I’m constantly tweaking my calories (bargaining and compromising with myself) as I change my mind about what I want to eat for a specific meal or snack.
Tracking everything is tedious, annoying, horrible, and time-consuming, but it’s the only thing that works for me. It took me a very, very long time before I got used to it, and now I’d be lost if I couldn’t track my food. With smartphones, tracking is easy these days, so there’s no excuse not to. Friends who refuse to track their meals because it’s just too annoying continue to gain weight while they still complain that they’re unhappy that they’re getting bigger.
No matter what I eat, I read labels, I practice portion control, and I’m cognizant of calories, protein, and sodium levels. Now I’m starting to look at sugar levels too.
Whereas before I had to force myself to get up and do something physically active, now it’s second nature. It’s part of my day. When I first started my journey, I would spend hours trying to convince myself to go out for a walk or to the gym. Then I’d think, Oh, for God’s sake! You’d be done by now. Just go and be done with it already! But it was a struggle. These days I plan my day around being active. If I have errands to run, I plan whether I should walk or ride my bike to get them done. I can’t say I enjoy exercising any more than I ever did before (I always hated it), but I love the results: muscle definition, improved strength and endurance, and the ability to do more than ever before while losing weight.
The more I accomplish, the more it motivates me to continue. When I see someone who’s as obese as I used to be, I can often see it in their faces that they’re not happy and I can see that they’re uncomfortable moving their big body. I remember what that was like, and it motivates me to continue succeeding because I never want to go back to that state again.
Although I’ve gotten rid of all my clothes many times over through my journey, I kept two items from my heaviest days: a pair of pants and a jeans jacket. I sometimes put them on now to remind me how far I’ve come. What used to fit me then are now like elephant clothes on me. Fla told me to burn them but I told her no, I’ll keep these to remind me how far I’ve come and where I never want to be again!
The struggles
Food is my addiction, and I’ve struggled for every pound I’ve lost during my journey. I will always struggle when it comes to food, particularly when I feel stressed, emotionally unstable, or depressed. The problem with this type of addiction is that we all have to eat to survive, so I’m forced to face my addiction all day, every day, for the rest of my life. The key is to never give up or berate myself when I “fail.” There’s nothing wrong with struggling, but giving up is unacceptable. If I get off my path, I just need to get up, dust myself off, and find the strength to get back on track immediately. It’s not easy by any means, but it’s the only way to succeed. I continue to “fail” often, but being on this side of the scale, I can get back on track immediately and continue on my journey without berating myself too much for my temporary lapse.
Whenever I feel the need to binge, I stop and ask myself, Are you hungry or are you coping with a negative emotion? Usually the culprit is the latter. I can’t say I always succeed in overcoming my emotional binge eating, but now that I understand why I binge, it’s a little easier to stop sabotaging myself.
Advice
Many people have told me, “I wish I could do what you did!” What I tell them is this: if I can do it in my 50s after a life long battle with weight issues, anyone can! The only difference between me and them is that I stopped wishing I could lose weight and I actually put in the hard work. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t fun, and it certainly wasn’t fast, but the only time I saw success is when I became proactive. Losing weight won’t happen by magic; gimmicks and tricks don’t work, and wishing to lose weight doesn’t do much. The only way to see success is to put the hard work in and get through the struggles by making better choices.
My advice is to start slow. Changing your lifestyle is a daunting task, but what worked for me was to start slow and then build on my progress. Making changes to my lifestyle picked up speed the more success I experienced. Start making changes today. Don’t wait for Monday or next month or after your birthday or the new year. Stop wasting your life away in obesity like I did.
I wish I could bottle how I feel today to share with people who are where I used to be so that they can see what they’re missing out on. Life is too short to be unhappy and unhealthy.
So many people have told me to start a blog about my journey. Although it’s completely embarrassing to put your failures out to the world, perhaps someone can learn something from my journey that will help them succeed.
For more on Vilma’s inspiring journey, check out her blog, Blossoming Vilma. All photos courtesy of Vilma Sujodolsky.
Need more inspiration? Read about our other weight-loss winners!
Weight-Loss Win is authored by Andie Mitchell, who underwent a transformative 135-pound weight loss of her own.
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