WEIGHT LOSS A FAMILY AFFAIR
Mother and daughter shed 188 lbs.
Whenever Marilyn Martin and her daughter Theresa Shepley set the family dinner table, it always includes something that’s just as important to them as the knives and forks.
Typically, Martin sits at one end of the dining table in her Tecumseh home while Shepley sits at the other.
“We’re always saying, ‘Can you pass me the scale,’ ” Shepley said with a laugh. “When I went on vacation last year with my family, the scale came with me. It’s a family member now.” Together, mother and daughter have lost 188 pounds since the fall of 2016.
“We measure everything,” Martin said of their commitment to portion size as part of the Weight Watchers program they have followed for almost two years. Using a food scale has been key to their success.
“I’m not eating the portions I used to eat,” said Shepley, who has lost 110 pounds. “I couldn’t.” Martin has now lost 78 pounds. However they choose to celebrate Mother’s Day, they’ll make sure plenty of healthy choices are on the table.
“When a get-together is based around food there’s a lot of different choices than before,” Shepley said. “You’ve got to have mom’s potato salad because it’s so good but there might be three or four other dishes as well.” Martin is the baker in the family and the self-avowed chocoholic, but she’s adjusted her recipes to less decadent choices in recent years.
Both mother and daughter have waged a long battle with weight. “I had always been heavy,” said the 63-year-old Martin.
She gained even more weight as she took care of her ailing husband, Barry, and still more after he died in 2013.
Then two months after giving birth to her son, Jimi, in 2015, Shepley had a severe stroke at just 33 years old.
Embarking on physiotherapy to regain use of the right side of her body, she decided to make some drastic lifestyle changes. “After the stroke, it was all pretty confusing,” Shepley said. “I was new to having a son and I had a lot of fears about that.”
So Martin and Shepley began a committed weight-loss journey together, attending the same meetings and propping each other up emotionally and physically. On a visit to Newfoundland and Labrador last June, Martin went hiking for the first time.
She had a knee replacement done last year and she’ll get the other done this fall.
“I have way more energy,” she said. “I’ve never been real good at exercise, but I try to walk.” Shepley continues regular physiotherapy on her road to recovery for the stroke she has since learned was caused by a blood disorder known as antiphospholipid syndrome.
Losing weight has helped her regain precious mobility. “The change is immense,” she said. “I’m seeing huge changes with recovery. I can get down on the floor for physio or to play with my son.”
Having both reached their goal weights, the pair could simply go to a Weight Watchers meeting once a month, but instead they continue a weekly regimen.
“I need that accountability,” Shepley said. “I’m a planner and an analytical person. I need that consistency in my life.”