Slimming down

BY Jennifer Hogan / Special to The Citizen

Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:25 AM EST

CATO - Weight loss is a universal subject that the vast majority of people find themselves battling with on a daily basis.
Sam Tenney / The Citizen
Cindy Jocko poses with a dress she used to wear before losing over 200 pounds at a meeting of Taking Off Pounds Sensibly, or TOPS, at the Cato-Meridian Community Recreation Center on Wednesday night.
Whether it be a large weight loss goal or losing just a few pounds, living a healthy lifestyle is a goal that everyone strives for.

Yet for some the battle with weight loss is an issue that they need help and support with. Such was the case for Cindy Jocko, of Auburn.

Jocko had been facing the weight loss issue for many years before she found TOPS (Take off Pounds Sensibly), a weight loss support and learning group.

In the group, Jocko learned that the only way to truly lose and keep off the weight was to change her eating habits and generally live a healthier lifestyle.

“Weight loss and healthy living is a lifelong journey,” said Lou Ann Roberts, chapter leader for TOPS No. 558, Cato's group. “The group helps to keep you on track and gives support through the ups and downs.”

After joining the TOPS group in 1998, Jocko said that she weighed more than 400 pounds, but with the help and support of the TOPS group, she was able to lose more than 200 pounds and keep it off.

“It wasn't easy,” she said in an inspirational speech given during the chapter's meeting held last week at the Cato-Meridian Community Recreation Center in Cato.

The chapter meeting was an open house celebration of weight loss support that also marked the group's 35th anniversary.

Losing the weight naturally took many years and a lot of hard work for Jocko, but she said that she has never felt better. She began her membership in April of 1998, and reached her weight loss goal in October of 2005.

“Jocko is just an inspiration to us all,” Roberts said.

Roberts also said that she has been a member of the group since the age of 13. “And I am in my 40s now,” she said.

Roberts said that the group meets weekly to offer support and encouragement in helping people to reach their weight loss goals.

“Even though the meetings are held weekly, we also offer encouragement during the rest of the week too,” she said. “If I am thinking about someone, I will send them an e-mail or give them a call just to say keep up the good work.”

Now that Jocko has reached her goal weight, she has graduated to the second level of the group titled KOPS, Keep Off Pounds Sensibly. This group was founded in 1948 and currently has chapters all over the world.

“We share healthy menus or new exercises,” Roberts said. “We also have contests and games centered around weight loss or sometimes we will just go for a walk together.”

When it comes to weight loss the group emphasizes that losing it naturally is the best way to take off the pounds and keep them off.

The Citizens' Say

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There are 1 comment(s)

Farmer's Gal wrote on Dec 11, 2007 3:01 PM:

" In addition to all of us living in a culture where fast, convenient and utterly unhealthy food is shoved in our faces through advertising, we also live in an environment full of all kinds of chemicals, many of which mimic hormones and bond with our receptors, messing up our metabolisms. So, while age is also a factor, there are also many environmental factors making Americans overweight -- many of them utterly beyond our control. That doesn't mean we should just give up -- not eating healthy and not exercising makes it even worse -- but something needs to be done about all the health damaging toxins in our environment, and it wouldn't hurt to reduce the advertising and pervasive availability of unhealthy fast foods. Take it from a former professional athlete who eats only really healthy food as prescribed by a nutrionist and who exercises 45-60 minutes 5-7 days a week under the guidance of a personal trainer -- who nonetheless continues to gain weight and put on fat (and no, it isn't thyroid). "

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