“I DODGED DIABETES AND SIDESTEPPED SURGERY!”
Linda Migliaccio felt crushed. She’d just lost her mother, and knowing she couldn’t stand at the funeral to give the eulogy due to her weight and recent knee injury was too upsetting to bear. Sitting in the front row of the church, listening to her pre-recorded speech, she knew: I have to stop using food as a crutch.
Linda had quit her job to care for her mother and lost her health insurance, and during that stressful 10 years, she gained 200 pounds. One doctor predicted she’d be wheelchair-bound within a year, and another feared her sky-high blood pressure would lead to a stroke. But Linda didn’t see any way around her food addiction, especially during her grief.
So she prayed for guidance, and that’s when she started remembering nutrition advice she’d learned earlier in life.
To build on her knowledge, she started reading books by Joel Fuhrman, M.D., who claimed natural weight loss was a by-product of self-care. Linda explains, “My focus shifted from missing my mom to trying to honor her by being here.”
Dr. Fuhrman suggested eating lecithin-rich foods like sunflower seeds and soy. Linda put the seeds in smoothies and made omelets with a vegetarian egg-replacement that contained lecithin. She loved how she felt, and she lost 6 pounds the first week.
Within two years Linda had freed herself of nearly 200 pounds, sidestepped knee surgery and lowered her blood pressure and blood sugar. “My doctor raves,” she says. “My mom would be thrilled.”
Today, Linda teaches a TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) support group to keep herself and others motivated, and she is training to become a yoga instructor. “I wasted a lot of my life worrying about not looking good enough. I wish someone had told me it was just about being healthy and everything else would fall into place!”