Ever wonder if it’s possible to lose weight and keep it off without surgery, weight-loss pills or fad diets?
Sure, it is. Just ask Mike Kitchens, who lost 282 pounds through a healthy diet, moderate exercise and a few strategies that might surprise you.
Kitchens made an incredible journey from weighing 475 pounds at his heaviest ten years ago to weighing 193 pounds today and transforming his overall health
Kitchens shared his story at the next Healthy for Life class on Tuesday, April 15 in the Health, Education and Wellness Learning Center at Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton. The class also featured a presentation on optimal numbers for heart health from Dr. Shazib Khawaja, a physician with Tanner Heart and Vascular Specialists.
Mike Kitchens Set Achievable Goals
“I never sat down and said, ‘I have to lose 300 pounds,’” Kitchens said. “That’s not the best strategy because it feels like such a daunting, unachievable task. It’s more effective if you start gradually and break that seemingly insurmountable goal into smaller, more achievable goals.”
For example, a couple years ago, he set a goal to lose 50 pounds before his high school reunion. Last year, he set another goal to get down to 250 pounds before flying to a work conference in Washington, D.C.
It’s these smaller goals — and victories — that helped keep him motivated.
“You lose weight like you gain it, one pound at a time,” said Kitchens.
Kitchens says he was chubby as a kid growing up in Fitzgerald, Georgia, but he played three sports in high school a weighed only 170 pounds when he graduated. He continued eating like a high school athlete, but he was able to maintain a reasonable weight as an undergraduate at Mercer University and while he completed his MBA at the University of Tennessee. When he began his career, though, a more sedentary lifestyle resulted in significant weight gain.
Kitchens, who also has a degree in computer information systems from Georgia State University, currently works as an instructional designer at Greenway Health in Carrollton.
His dramatic weight loss certainly didn’t happen overnight. It began a few years ago when he began following a low-calorie diet of about 800 to 900 calories a day under a doctor’s supervision.
In March 2011, he weighed 448 pounds and by February 2013, he was down to 360 pounds.
On his weight-loss journey, he met Melissa Brillhart, a registered dietitian and health coach at Tanner Health System. Mike says having Melissa as his health coach was a valuable source of advice, encouragement, and accountability.
“Melissa was a tremendous help to me,” he said. “I lost over 100 pounds during that time period, in large part by following her guidance.”
In the past three years, he has lost a total of 255 pounds and now weighs 193 pounds at 5’9”. He previously suffered from type II diabetes and was dependent on a daily insulin injections and pills, but now his diabetes is gone.
Finding What Works
Kitchens is certainly not alone in his battle to lose weight. In Carroll County, 31 percent of adults are obese, as are 29 percent of adults in Heard County and 32 percent in Haralson County, according to newly released data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
His story is important because he lost weight through a healthy diet and exercise — and has kept it off.
“It wasn’t like I didn’t try to lose weight before,” he recalls. “I had tried everything from low-fat and low-carb diets to Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, but I would just lose weight and gain it back.”
He says the bottom line is that he finally figured out what worked for him — a low-calorie diet and moderate exercise.
Here’s something that might surprise you: Kitchens eats a sub sandwich from Subway almost every day! He gets three of the four basic food groups by eating a sub on white bread with meat and tons of veggies. He skips the cheese, but loads up on jalapenos because the spiciness helps him feel satisfied and because he once read that spicy foods can stimulate weight loss.
“I really don’t feel deprived because I love Subway and I love Diet Coke and that’s about 80 percent of what I consume,” he said. “I have also learned to enjoy grapes, apples and raw vegetables which are healthy, low-calorie foods that satisfy my appetite.”
Making Time for Moving More
As for exercise, Kitchens tries to walk each day. He couldn’t even walk 100 steps 10 years ago, but he gradually worked up to 5 minutes, 10 minutes and then 30 minutes a day (almost 2 miles).
“I’m so much more active now and I enjoy getting out and doing more things,” Kitchens said.
He participated in a fundraising walk for leukemia, and he plans to walk the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta this summer. He is also looking forward to a two-hour walking ghost tour of downtown Atlanta.
Weighing himself daily has also been important. He steps on the scale at the same time every day and charts his weight on an Excel spreadsheet every week so he can track his weight loss.
“At first, I couldn’t even find a scale to weigh me, I had to buy one off the Internet,” he recalls.
Kitchens has learned a lot on his wellness journey. A psychology major in college, he employs mind games to stave off cravings.
“If I have a craving for a hamburger, I will try to remember the worst hamburger I ever ate or a time when I got sick from eating a hamburger,” he says.
But the most important insight he says is also the simplest: Eat less and move more.
Kitchens, who still adheres to a restricted diet, has been eating 800 to 900 calories a day for the past few years, but is working up to 1,400 calories a day.
It might sound tough, but Kitchens says it’s not.
“Eventually your body gets used to it and you simply don’t need as much food,” he says. “I look at food now like it’s fuel for a car; I eat what I need to keep my body going and feeling good.”