008. Karen Willock: Thirty-Three Diets Later

Elisa carried the exact same picture of herself for much of her life. She was the girl who was just a little bigger than her skinny friends in high school. She crossed into obesity, and then well beyond, without ever updating her self-image.What finally made her take an honest look wasn’t a mirror, but two cancers, years apart. The thought that followed was, “You don’t get that many chances.” A year and a half later, Elisa has stopped chasing a number. Now she’s after something more specific. Getting up off the floor, from a deep squat, with no hands. Getting well is about more than just a number. There’s a whole life behind the number that was being held back. We can show you what the other side is like.→ https://joinvineyard.com/go/weighty-conversations

Elizabeth spent most of her life trying to shrink herself. But no matter what the scale said, the shame stayed. Eventually, she decided her size would no longer tell the story of who she was. She was tired of being the friend you could call at midnight, but never the one in the wedding photos. Years of therapy followed that decision, finally allowing her to set down the shame she carried about her own body.But what she couldn’t put down was the hunger. A constant hum beneath an otherwise calm, controlled life, until a GLP-1 finally quieted the noise. For the first time, she says, she’s at parity with everyone who never had to think about any of this.Results aren’t just what you see on the scale or in the mirror. How you feel matters too, and that’s the kind of care we’re built for. We’d love to show you what that’s like.→ https://joinvineyard.com/go/weighty-conversations

Rachel grew up when a chocolate shake from your mom counted as a diet plan and spent college splitting her days between the elliptical and Taco Bell. Years later, she and her husband committed to their health together. He leaned out while she stalled, doing just as much work.But now she can have one snack and wait for dinner in peace, and she looks better than she did at her lowest, even carrying a little more. And she’d ask anyone chasing a number, “Would you rather be happy with the scale or with how you feel?”Want to work with a care team that looks beyond the scale? That’s us.→ https://joinvineyard.com/go/weighty-conversations

What Karen actually wanted was the ability to ride a bike and the freedom to sit in any chair in the room… which sounds small until you’ve gone through decades of restrictive dieting and believing you simply weren’t trying hard enough. Now in her 70s, Karen has a message for everyone her age who has given up on themselves, felt invisible, or decided they’re no longer worth the trouble: Don’t abandon yourself just because you’re getting older or wrinkled.We’re here to help you choose yourself:→ https://joinvineyard.com/go/weighty-conversations

One day at school, a boy in the lunchroom pointed at Roseanne’s container of tuna fish and announced she was on a diet. For the next fifty-plus years, she treated those taunts as proof that something was wrong with her. Now in her 60s, she believes for the first time that nothing ever was, and she shows up to every Vineyard support session she can fit on her calendar. Less for herself, more to be there for whoever walks in carrying the same shame that she did.Wherever your story began, the next chapter hasn’t been written yet.We can help you write the one you want.→ joinvineyard.com/go/weighty-conversations

Bridget can't point to a trigger. No injury, no pregnancy, no diagnosis. Just, in her words, something that switched in her body in her late twenties and began a twenty-plus year journey of losing and regaining the same 40 pounds.She talks with Dr. Spencer and Summer about the lap band that did nothing, the doctor who told her he wasn't trained for this, and why she now tells people the medication alone was never the whole answer.Want support on your own journey? We're ready when you are.http://joinvineyard.com/go/weighty-conversations

Kevin Ruiz spent years earning his sense of worth entirely through what he could do for other people, as a prosecutor working the heaviest child welfare cases in New York and as a father who'd pushed his own needs aside completely. Here he talks with Dr. Spencer and Summer about the Easter egg hunt and the t-ball game that cracked that belief, the many ups and downs of his journey, and the moment he realized health isn't something you have to earn.Want support on your own journey? We’re ready when you are.joinvineyard.com/join/

Jamie Selzler can pinpoint the exact moment his weight started to climb: after two weeks at his grandparents' with an unlimited soda fridge at age nine. Decades later, weighing over 600 pounds, he sat next to an endocrinologist on a flight home who handed him her card and told him to call. He never did. Not until a friend told him “I want you to go to my funeral, I don’t want to go to [yours]” did Jamie finally get help.Changing habits you’ve held for your whole life is hard. Losing weight is hard.We help make both easier: joinvineyard.com/join/

Lou Lionetti spent decades not knowing what hunger or fullness actually felt like, eating his feelings, and indulging in “food is love” at every family table until type 2 diabetes and a decade of rising labs caught up with him. In the third episode of Weighty Conversations, Lou shares what finally quieted the noise, and how “consistent, not compulsive” became his mantra for success.Consistent, not compulsive. That’s the Vineyard way.Get started here: → joinvineyard.com/join/

Caitlin Kelly played competitive softball for eighteen years and was overweight the whole time, cycling through Weight Watchers from age twelve into every season of adulthood that followed. In the second episode of Weighty Conversations, Caitlyn reveals the moment her food noise finally went quiet, and what she's learned about persistence now that her goal is no longer a number on a scale.Weight loss doesn’t have to be a miserable experience. We can show you how.→ joinvineyard.com/join/