It was time for KimAnn Phillips, 62, to take care of her health five years ago. “I was sick and tired of being fat.” It was terrible. She tells TODAY.com, “I wasn’t happy with myself.” It was important to me to be able to move around.
As a child, Phillips wasn’t overweight, but her father made fun of her size: “When I was a kid, my father used to make fun of me and tell me I was fat.” It’s impossible for me to have been fat when I look at old shots. “But that picture stuck in my mind,” she says. “It really affects you as an adult when people put you down and make fun of you when you are young.” For a long time, that made me really angry. It was really hard for me to feel good.
She says that after having her two kids, she put on weight. Over time, her weight caused her health problems, mostly high blood pressure and cholesterol. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she had joint pain. Her knees hurt because she used to play basketball. She says, “The extra weight made them even worse.” She also has coeliac disease, which made her joint pain even worse.
Even though she was only six feet tall, her weight of 360 pounds was making her life hard: “I couldn’t move.” I wasn’t able to go for a walk.
She has lost 106 pounds now. She walks every day, eats well, and feels better than she has in years. She no longer gets as many headaches and her blood pressure and cholesterol numbers have gone down.
After she dropped the first 40 pounds, she could tell a big change. “I felt great.” “My knees didn’t hurt, and I could move,” she says.