The Thousand Little Steps that Led to a New Lease on Life and a New World of Clothes

By Margaret Schauer

In the semi-privacy of the Old Navy dressing room stall, Cyndy Barney looked at her reflection in the mirror and burst into tears. Reaching for her cell phone, she called her sister Carole and exclaimed, Guess what? Im in a size 10! This seminal moment occurred in the fall of 2004, marking a passage of almost 30 years since Barney, 42, had worn that size. The only overweight sibling in a family of five children, Barney had always wondered how Carole and the others stayed so lean. Standing in Old Navy, the evidence of her hard work hugging her skin, Barney knew the answers: portion control and exercise.

The Temple-TECEC kindergarten teacher, originally a size 22 and now a size 6-8, reached her weight loss goal of 95 pounds in the spring of 2005. Her year-and-a-half journey, marked with determination, self-education and introspection, unfolded into what she calls a one hundred percent lifestyle change. The new lifestyle is one that Barney happily foresees no end. She asserts, A long term goal is to continue this. This is my life Im just going to be me and have a healthy lifestyle. In the beginning, Barney considered gastric bypass surgery as a method to lose some of her 230 pounds, but discarded the idea after looking closer into the pros and cons of the procedure. On her 40th birthday, she decided it was time to explore new eating habits. Then came the devastating news of her sister-in-laws breast cancer diagnosis in January 2004.

It was a huge wake-up call for me, Barney says. Driven by her sister-in-laws illness and her own fear that she might not live to 45 if she continued at her current weight, Barney, a single parent, says, I wanted to live to see my son. That was it. Barney took what shed learned from years of participating in Weight Watchers and went to work on changing her lifestyle. I started with portion control, eating five little meals a day. The visuals are easy: meat the size of a deck of cards, mashed potatoes that can fit into half of a tennis ball. Then, putting aside her trepidation toward gyms, Barney joined Curves in Lyndon in June 2004, discovering that she enjoyed exercising. As a member of the Jewish Community Center, she began working out at both places, meeting trainer Bekki Jo Trusty at the JCC. She is a great trainer. "I owe her a lot", Barney says, tearing up. "Bekki Jo said that I am an inspiration to her because of how I've changed my whole mindset: my mind, body and soul" she says this is why I've [lost 95 pounds], why I've succeeded and am continuing to succeed".

Barney also serves as inspiration for many others, something that amazes her after her life-long weight battle. She says, Because of me, a lot of my friends have joined Curves. You always think its about giving up stuff [getting fit], but theres a whole new world out there. She pauses and grins. A whole world of clothes. Barney exercises at least five days a week, most of her workouts lasting two-and-a-half hours at a time and including spin classes, elliptical machines and weights. My sister-in-law, Leigh Ann, was my inspiration for exercise, she says. Shes the CFO of Trilogy Health Services and either gets up early to exercise or goes to the YMCA at lunch. She has three children. I told myself, I have one [child], how can I not? And once I did start exercising, there was the time. It is possible. An important side effect of Barneys active lifestyle is the extra time she gets to spend with her 18-year-old son, Sean.

We work out together at the JCC, she says, smiling. We usually lift weights twice a week. I like working out with him, side-by-side. A new, unexpected factor in Barneys life is the realization that she likes to cook after a past of eating fast food. One of her favorite cookbooks is Five Ingredients, 15 Minutes from the Cooking Light magazine series. With this cookbook, you can have a great, healthy meal [in very little time]. Now I find myself very rarely eating out I really enjoy the process of cooking. Barney fully embraces her journey by avoiding the word diet, viewing it instead as a lifestyle change: a change that means treating herself well.

While losing the 95 pounds, she rewarded herself at every ten-pound mark. A new top, a nice meal, a new cookbook, she says. Its all about baby steps its been one thousand little steps [for me]. I tried one spin class in September [2004] and then another and now Her radiant smile speaks volumes for the unlimited possibilities healthy living holds in her future.