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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 12, 1997)
Special Feature The Clackamas Print Wednesday, February 12,1997 Photo & Page Design by Laney Fouse Eating Well magazine features English Instructor Emily Orlando How to lose weight the “write” way * Laney Fouse Editor-in-Chief and rolls of film. Orlando still did not think it would come to much. mily Orlando found an Another phone call was from answer to a lifelong the copy editor who was weight problem by checking facts. designing her own curriculum “It was just a lark when I for fitness, which allowed her first wrote that one-page to lose 50 pounds and keep it article, to kind of validate and off for the past five years. prove I had actually did this. The petite English Writing the one-page narrative instructor is featured in the and sending it out was more January/February edition of proof, besides what the scale Eating Well magazine. said and how I was feeling. It “Two years ago, in 1994, was just kind of another step,” they had a little blurb at the Orlando said. bottom of one of the pages. She kept a very sketchy They wanted to hear from journal during this time anyone who had lost 50 because there were too many pounds and kept it off for two other things keeping her busy. years. They wanted to know “I couldn’t write a how I did it,” said Orlando. sustained narrative but what I She admits it felt good to did and what I still do five and write the one page letter even a half years later I write down though she got a “thanks but everything I eat everyday. I no thanks” letter. In don’t know if this is good or September 1996, Orlando obsessive,” said Orlando. received a message on her A family history of heart answering machine from the disease and diabetes were a magazine. major concern for Orlando but “I thought, well, my being self-conscious about her subscription must be up. The body image played an even rest of the message said they greater role. were going to do another story “I was just overweight my on weight loss and lifestyle entire life. I had a wonderful changes, focusing on fitness. They wanted to know how people fit the exercise into their life,” Orlando said. The editorial staff at the magazine decided to review some of material they had received from their previous request. Orlando’s letter had apparently impressed them. “I don’t even remember what I wrote. I didn’t keep a copy of that letter. I don’t know but it must have been »Emily Orlando brilliant, I guess. Of course I English Instructor was interested,” said Orlando. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, she had several phone calls -- family childhood but other including one interview with kids were cruel. They would the magazine’s nutrition call me fatty and four eyes and editor. The forty-minute stuff like that. Even through phone call covered such areas college I was overweight. I as whether she had kept the was always thinking about weight off, what sort of food and weight and my body routine she followed and but all in a negative way,” whether she was still doing Orlando said. the same things. In 1992, at forty-three-\ “She called my husband years old, she made up her the following week to see if mind to change. he was still sane. They told “I said, ‘This is it.’ It’s a him they would be in touch matter of health now plus I had and they wanted some curvature of the spine. My pictures. They wanted some back was killing me. The outdoor shots, maybe some doctor had said decades ago action shots. Even at that the older I get and the heavier, point we were just laughing that the weight on my frame and saying, ‘This is pretty was going to cause pain. And exciting’but who knows what sure enough that’s what was will come of it’,” said Orlando. happening. I had to lose One month later the weight. I couldn’t wish it off photographer called. He anymore,” said Orlando. traveled to Estacada and Prior to making her life spent two hours taking rolls changing decision, Orlando E ii I was a second- generation Italian and love was food. __________ 55 had resigned herself to eating two-thousand calories thinking she was always going and not exercising that much,” to be overweight. She kept Orlando said. According to Orlando, it checking with her doctor who said her health was still good. was astonishing to her how Her lab reports contained all the right numbers. Orlando felt happy with herself. “I was so happy with myself that I gained about six pounds in two weeks/’ she said. Like a lot of other women, Orlando’s emotional eating patterns stemmed froth her family. / “I was second- generation Italian and love was food,” said Orlando, “[In my family] it was ‘if you don’t eat this, you don’t love me’.”/ When she ' was about eighteen, Orlando spent her days going to college and working; she Photo by Laney Fouse took all the overtime Emily Orlando lost 50 pounds with her she could get. Some own weight loss plan. days she would be away from home from six in the much she would eat with just morning until eleven at night. a bite here or there. “I would eat five tortillas Before she even realized it, she and cheese while preparing had dropped down to 113 dinner. I didn’t even realize I pounds without even trying. “I didn’t have money for was doing it. I would turn food. Lunch was toast and around and half the package of tomato or something similar. tortillas would be gone and a Sure enough, my family said, half pound of cheddar cheese ‘Oh you’re going to die. You was gone,” Orlando said. The biggest change she look so terrible. Eat some more.’ Once I had enough made in her food choices was money for college, I didn’t to give up cheese. She now have to work that hard anymore eats nonfat mozzarella on pizza, and the weight came right but only occasionally. Orlando was able to identify as one of back,” said Orlando. her problem areas the simple In January 1992, she felt it act of coming home and was time to do something. “Actually, I thought I had reading the paper. “I would open up the eaten pretty well because I hadn’t used butter or even newspaper and eat. I would eat margarine for decades. I don’t until dinner. I isolated that as use salad dressing. I had been a trouble spot. I would have drinking skim milk since 1975,” to come home, change into my said Orlando “My lunch that I exercise clothes and do brought to school would be something immediately. If I nonfat yogurt, Grape Nuts and looked through the mail or raisins. I’d have a half bagel looked at the paper, then here in the morning with nothing on would come the tortillas and it. I thought I was eating cheese and I’d be sunk,” she pretty good. And maybe three said. Orlando made a conscious times a week, I would have a king-size Snickers bar. But, effort to change by writing down what she ate, when she hehrhow bad can that be?” Once she made the decision exercised and what her trouble to lose weight, she started areas were. “I would attack each one a writing down everything she little at a time. What I did was ate. “I was amazed that my plan to lose three pounds a healthy little lunch was almost month. I thought that would a thousand calories. I realized have been a miracle. I asked it was a matter of cutting fat myself, ‘What can I do in and cutting calories. A January that’s different than thousand calories of Grape what I did in December to lose Nuts may be healthy, but it’s three pounds?’” she said. She began by using fewer still a thousand calories. I was Grape Nuts and, instead of raisins, she used grapes. Instead of taking the whole; two-pound block of cheddar out, she would cut off just a little, figuring it would be better than eating half as she did before. Each month afterwards, she would always ask herself what could she do different than the previous month to lose the three pounds. “I was still having the cheese, but I would cut it back. I took out the Grape Nuts and added more grapes along with an orange or an apple. I was eating in bulk. I realized that by trading off the bagel, I could have an apple, a banana, an orange and some milk. I could never even eat all that much at once,” she admits. Making a lifestyle change affects not just the person making the change but also family members. “Charlie and I have been married for years, and he understood that I was battling the weight. He really made an effort to understand. He’s been really supportive,” said Orlando, although she said there have been times of adjustment “When I would come home from school, I would have to do aerobics even when I didn’t feel like doing it. It was a matter of a psychological, habit-forming thing.” Even when she was not working out as hard as she should, she was exercising her mind, establishing the habit. There were times when she would go home and, although she knew there were things to be done, she would go upstairs and do aerobics. “There were times when he would be thinking that I could get all this exercise from helping him out. I explained to him that I had to establish this pattern. I had to do this sustained exercise every day or at least four times a week. I didn’t mind doing the other stuff, but it would have to be after my established time. Once he understood that, it was great. He ended up helping quite a lot,” said Orlando. She acknowledges it was the small, seemingly insignificant changes in her choices of food that were the primary reason for her weight loss. “What I realized was I had lost the taste for fat. My body could, not accept it anymore. It’s not so much willpower as it is making a conscious decision. I have a choice,” said Orlando.
