Success Stories

My name is Eileen Gibbons and I am from Spokane, WA.  I heard about Positive Changes on the TV.  I also have a friend who is doing Positive Changes so I talked with her a bit and that's where I got excited about the idea.  Before coming to Positive Changes, I was in a depression because of my weight.  I had tried to lose weight many times before with all sorts of systems.  I also had really bad knees.  I had some knee surgery and realized that if I didn't do something, my knees would keep me from continuing the active lifestyle that I wanted.

The physical therapist told me that if I would take my weight and multiply it by four, then I would understand the pressure I'm putting on my knees and feet each time I take a step on each foot.  I did that and at 202 lbs, that was a lot of pressure.  I realized immediately that I needed to do something different for my health, so I chose to come to Positive Changes. 

I came to Positive Changes and after my first session, I was able to get up off the chair and say, 'I'm worth this'.  That was quite a moving feeling to realize that I'm worth investing that in myself and my health.  At that time, I wasn't focused so much on weight loss as I wanted my health back.  I'm 67 years old and looking at my health situation, I realized that people who will be caring for me in my old age wouldn't appreciate lifting all that weight back and forth from a couch to a chair, and so forth.  I felt like I owed it to myself to improve the situation.

After the first session, I got up and it was like the world seemed brighter.  I made some decisions about exercising and I started to ride my bike to work.  At that time, I was riding on just a single speed cruiser and I was having a really difficult time getting back up the hill from downtown.  As I was doing that, one of the fellows in my office gave me bicycle and encouraged me to just keep doing it.  I have been riding from the north side to downtown and back home every day which is over 7 miles roundtrip.  That has been amazing because without Positive Changes, I would never have been able to do that.  It was so much easier to do because mentally I was ready to do it.

The pounds just seemed to come off without too much trouble at all.  Sometimes it was a battle to overcome some of the urges, but nothing like what I've experienced before.  This almost felt like it was melting away.  I laughed and said that there was a lot of my weight on that hillside coming up from downtown. 

I noticed changes in my behavior immediately. I had so much more energy.  It is just amazing what this program does.  I feel like I have better control of my eating habits and better control over portion sizes.  It's been amazing when I think about food and what choices I make when I'm shopping now.  I would never have accomplished this much without the help I've received from Positive Changes. 

All total, I've gone from 202 lbs down to 150 lbs.  I've lost 52 lbs.  That is exciting to me.  I see this as a permanent change in my life.  I've gone to see the doctor and now I've been taken off the Coumadin that I was taking for my blood clots.  My blood pressure medicine has also been reduced and that is very exciting to me.  I was just at my son's wedding this past weekend and it was really fun to have all these people notice the changes in me.  They say I'm half the size I was. 

It certainly has given me more confidence and more self-esteem.  I feel that the Positive Changes program certainly has been worth every penny that I've spent. It makes me feel better in my job. When you are more confident and you have more energy, naturally your job feels better.  I'm 5'2” and my biggest pair of pants were a size 16.  Now I'm down to a size 8 pair of pants and I haven't been that size for a long, long time.  The most incredible thing that has happened in my life is that I came to Positive Changes to improve my health and that has been my biggest success.