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Lindy Cellucci, 60, remembers the exact moment she decided it was time to do something about her weight. It was 2014, and the Toronto native and three of her friends took a girls’ trip to Canada’s east coast.
“I was having a hard time following them,” she said TODAY. “We were doing a lot of walking and I found it more difficult every day. I was dizzy and scared that something would happen to me.
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FOLLOWING
Their trip included a stop at Hopewell Rocks, a natural formation where you can walk on the ocean floor when the tide goes out, surrounded by sandstone structures that look like flowerpots. “One thing I really wanted to do was go to the Rocks. It was on my bucket list, ”she says.
But it was a hot day and reaching the bottom of the ocean meant a steep descent and ascent. “I just knew I couldn’t do it,” she said.
Her friends felt bad, but Cellucci encouraged them to continue without her. “I watched them go. I could see them walking, descending, running on the ocean floor, taking selfies, laughing and joking. I was at the top with the great-grandmothers. I thought, “This is stupid. You’re missing something, ”she said.
“I said out loud, ‘It’s about time. I’m stopping everything now and going to fix this. “
And she did. Five days before her vacation, she quit eating junk food and started making healthier food choices.
When she got home, she stepped on the scales for the first time in years. “The scale only went up to 300,” she says. “I had no idea my weight started with a ‘3.’ It was mortifying.
She changed her diet and started to exercise
She joined Weight Watchers (now WW) and followed her healthy diet. “Right away I started to lose weight and feel better,” she says.
“This was the first time in all of the weight loss programs that I have tried where I realized it wasn’t just a quick fix – it was going to be forever. I didn’t starve or eat all bananas or just potatoes. I cooked delicious food and created wonderful, healthy and delicious recipes, ”she said.
To avoid temptation, she keeps trigger foods out of her home. “I am addicted to food. It hasn’t changed, ”she said. “I can say ‘no’ once in the store or 400 times at home.”
The exercise was a challenge. “Because I was a very tall woman, it was difficult to start exercising. I didn’t do this for about three months, ”she says. For Christmas, her sister bought her a Fitbit and she started walking one block, about 1,000 steps. “My back would hurt and my knees would hurt,” she said. But she liked to compete with other Fitbit users. “I liked the feeling of going forward,” she says.
“As the weight went down, I could add an extra turn, and more weight came off,” she said. “I kept on walking and started doing yoga, zumba, boot camp and swimming. I felt so excited. She worked up to 25,000 to 30,000 steps per day and was halfway to her target weight by the end of 2015.
Difficult diagnosis caused major setback
Cellucci has hit a serious stumbling block – breast cancer. In December 2015, after a cold walk, she folded her hands under her arms to warm them. And she felt a lump. From there, it all happened quickly – ultrasound, mammogram, biopsy and surgery. She needed several months of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and medication through a port in her chest.
“The worst thing about breast cancer was not to lose my hair, not to feel physically sick, not to be afraid of dying. The worst part for me was handing over the last book.
The steroids she had to take led to weight gain and the chemotherapy made most of the food tasty, so she said she lived on fried foods and salt. “The worst thing about breast cancer was not to lose my hair, not to feel physically sick, not to be afraid of dying. The worst part for me was handing over the last book, ”she says.
She found her way back to health
Cellucci was still wearing her Fitbit, and she joined WW around the time of her second clear mammogram. Slowly, the kilos are gone. “After 20 months of defeat pretty much every week, in September 2019, I hit my goal – I lost half of me,” she said. “I look better at 60 than at 40.” She now weighs 149 pounds and has gone from a size 22 to a size 9.
© Lindy Cellucci
She even appeared on the cover of People magazine’s Half their Size issue. “For a week, I spent time at the grocery store where the magazine was on the display, telling strangers, ‘It’s me! “, Did she say.
What about his trip to Hopewell Rocks? She plans a visit once the pandemic has subsided. “As soon as I can travel, I’ll go up and down these stairs,” she said.
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