The message that even middle-aged women and men might lose weight is offered by Helen Phillips, who last week beat contestants half her age on The Biggest Loser, the NBC weight-loss competition.

“No matter how old you are, you can make the change if you have the dedication and the drive,” said Phillips, 48, of Sterling Heights, Mich., who has lost 140 pounds since September.

Phillips, who won $250,000, credited celebrity fitness coach Jillian Michaels for helping her lose the weight through the roughly 18 weeks of the show.

She lost 32 pounds when she went home for 30 days — and credits high-school football coach Shauhen Tahrebandi, formerly a Bally’s personal trainer.

“I couldn’t have done it without him at home,” Phillips said.

She slimmed down from 257 to 117 pounds and went from a size 22 to a size 2.

At home, she worked out six hours a day — two hours each in the morning, afternoon and evening.

Phillips suggests the following advice for anyone trying to lose weight — but especially the middle-aged crowd:

• Carry along food so you don’t fall into bad habits, such as stopping at fast-food drive-throughs.

• Never make excuses.

“It’s a priority now to go to the gym or do some kind of physical exercise every day.”

• Believe in yourself.

“Stop saying you can’t, and start saying you can.”

(from http://www.columbusdispatch.com)

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// –>May 17, 2009 11:32 PM

Wisconsin’s very own Biggest Loser couple is home after their finale trip to California.  Kristin Steede and her mother Cathy Skell arrived at Austin Straubel International  Airport Saturday night.  The mother daughter team didn’t win on the NBC show but they did win something money can’t buy, the confidence to change their lives and stick with it.  “Everyday that I live my life I’m experiencing something new in a smaller body,” says Steede.  Now there’s no more cameras or coaches to remind them when to exercise and what to eat.  The real challenge lies ahead. “It taught me the most valuable lesson that this is a very tough lifestyle to live and you have to want it and you have to work for it, every single moment.”  Kristin started at 360 pounds and she lost 167, her mother Cathy lost 95 pounds.  “We’d be cheering each other on and you can do it,”says Skell.  Everyone giving each other the confidence to go the next step. “We kept going and everyday you went on and you got a little stronger.  It’s a wonderful feeling.  When we walked out of the gym, words can’t describe how you felt.”  This mother and daughter team is now hometown heroes.  Their true motivator is knowing how they felt before, and how they feel now.  Kristin says, “It’s hard because I will never forget what it felt like to live life like that, to be 360 pounds.”
The group, Mid-Day Business and Professional Women is welcoming Kristin, as the speaker for their monthly meeting this Wednesday at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel.  The public is welcome to attend.

(taken from http://www.nbc26.com )

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