Mom and Daughter Shed 200 Pounds

Both Margery Kashman (Margie, as she’s called by friends) and her daughter, Amy Weismann, struggled with their weight for years. Through the decades, Margie steadily grew from a petite size 5, when she was a teenager, to a size 20. Amy fought a similar battle since she was a child and, by the time she reached her early 20s, weighed more than 200 pounds. Not too long ago, both ladies decided they’d had enough. Enough of avoiding mirrors and scales. Enough of feeling out of control at the dinner table. Enough of buying clothes at plus-size stores.

Amy, a writer by trade, was first to embrace a healthier, more active lifestyle. It wasn’t long before her energy began to soar and her hourglass figure re-emerged. This inspired Margie, a former high school teacher who is now an independent educational consultant specializing in college admissions, to get in on the act. And their results have been amazing: Since the beginning of their weight loss journey, Margie has lost more than 100 pounds and Amy’s shed 80.

Now Margie and Amy are sharing their challenges and achievements with others who are fighting the same fight. Their blog, BecauseWe’veBeenThere.com, offers meal-planning and fitness tips, maintenance advice, and general inspiration for women (and men!) facing their own weight loss challenges. These amazing women recently talked to Red Typewriter about their lifelong weight issues, the power of mother-daughter camaraderie, and the glory of finally living in the body you were meant to have.

RT: How do you think your weight got so out of control?

Margie: When I was a teenager, my mother went on Weight Watchers, losing more than 100 pounds. A side benefit of being a dutiful (and cash-poor) daughter was that I ate whatever she fed me, and by my Sweet Sixteen, I was a size 5. Shortly afterward, I went off to college, gained the freshman 15, which turned into 30, and struggled to be a size 11 by my wedding in 1972. My weight was manageable until the 1990s when I started to gain steadily, and by 2005, I was well on my way to 300 pounds and a size 20. At 5’1” tall, that was pretty awful, but since I was fairly energetic and healthy (aside from blood pressure and sleep apnea), I ignored it…That and the mirror and the scale.

Amy: Like so many others, I’ve struggled with weight most of my life. I have never been very good at sports and am pretty uncoordinated. By the time I was 10, I was already overweight. I lost 20 pounds in high school, keeping it off until college, but then I gained it all back plus about 30 pounds more. By my senior year, I had no idea what I weighed, but was definitely over 200 lbs. I was miserable, and only wore baggy clothes with elastic waistbands. I joined a gym after college, but never changed my eating. I’d eat cookies on my lunch break at work. I’d go out to dinner and eat until I couldn’t breathe. If it was a fancy restaurant, I’d stash sweatpants in the car and then sneak out to change into them in the bathroom before we left.

RT: Do you remember the moment you decided “enough is enough?” What did it for you?

Margie: For me, there were three separate incidents. First, in 2010, my younger brother died of a heart attack at age 53, partly due to years of extreme obesity. I lost a little weight, but not enough. Then, in 2012, we went to Israel. I lugged myself around in the heat, and it was really hard to keep up my energy. After a shower, I looked into the bathroom mirror and, for the first time, I realized I looked grotesque. Then came the last straw:  Running into my high school boyfriend, who knew the size 5 Margie, and who told me he could still see Margie in my eyes. That was it. I wanted the high school body back—at least so I wouldn’t be ashamed of that person in the mirror. On May 3, 2013, I started My Fitness Pal, counting calories and exercising my way to a 100-plus pound weight loss. Once I started, I embraced it, keeping to 1,300 calories a day, using my exercise calories when I needed to, but never going over and never going off the wagon. It was a challenge and even fun to figure out what to eat each day. And it worked! As I write this, I am wearing size 6 petite jeans.

Amy: I remember the moment clearly. I was shopping for a pair of new jeans. Store after store, I couldn’t find any that fit. I ended up having to go into Lane Bryant, where I tried on my first plus size pair of jeans. Realizing that was where I’d gotten to at age 25, I started sobbing on the dressing room floor. That was my “No” moment. I simply refused to let myself be that heavy for another minute. I start making changes the next day.

Margie and Amy’s “before” photo

RT: What has been the most challenging part of the weight-loss process for you?

Margie: Honestly, once I started, the food decisions became fun. Amy was very encouraging and helpful as I began the process. The hardest thing was committing myself to exercise. At the beginning, I didn’t have the stamina to do more than a walk around the block for a half hour. I really hated the thought of going to the gym. But I joined Retro Fitness, realizing that if I was going to do it right, I had to do it all. Why was the gym so much of a challenge? I had to look at myself in exercise clothes and I had to come to the realization that the weight loss was going to be painfully slow if I didn’t get moving.

Amy: Maintenance has actually been more challenging for me than losing weight was. When you’re losing weight, you’re in a zone. You are working toward that goal, and every workout, every temptation you decide to avoid is one step closer to it. In maintenance I can eat a little more, but it’s actually terrifying to eat that donut, that plate of pasta or that ice cream that technically I’m “allowed” to have. There’s a fear after I indulge in eating something I wouldn’t have when I was losing weight. I worry will wake up tomorrow morning and be 80 pounds heavier again. But of course I won’t, and I do indulge occasionally, as long as I resume my regularly scheduled programming afterward. It’s a balancing act.

RT: What’s been the most surprising outcome of your personal transformation, aside from the physical changes?

Margie: I don’t think I can answer this without a brief explanation of the effect the physical change had on me.  So first, because I exercised, I do not have too much hanging flab, except for the arms and a bit in the upper legs.  Everything came off evenly. I had enough rear end for three tushes. Now, when I sit on a wooden chair, I react to the hardness of it. I had to readjust the car seat because I was, well, lower down! There are so many other surprises, like getting energized by the fact that I could wear a belt, or a pair of jeans that didn’t have a stretch waistband, or walking into a boutique and being directed to single-digit sizes. But it’s the attitude and the self-confidence that really surprised me about myself. I smile all the time, I talk to people I never would have even approached because they were thin and I was fat, and I watch what other people eat. When I see obese people sitting at a diner with a greasy burger, bun, French fries, onion rings and a chocolate shake, I shudder at what they are doing to themselves, and I have to stop myself from going over to them and telling them to stop!

Amy: The most surprising thing is how much I truly enjoy working out. I’m still not good at sports, but I love seeing how far I can push my body. Running my first 5K was a huge deal, and I’m hoping to start training for a 10K. I take boot camp classes, high-intensity interval classes, spinning, boxing, and I’m always looking to try something new. I’ve also recently started ice skating. It’s quite a change from the kid who would have a stomachache as soon as she got to gym class!

Ladies in Red: Success—especially when it involves shopping for clothes in a smaller size—feels sweet to Margie and Amy.

RT: Do you think the mother-daughter partnership was integral to your success? What did you provide one another along the way?

Amy: I started my journey years before my mother decided to begin her own. She was happy for me, of course, but our partnership didn’t begin until after I’d already achieved my goal. I will say that providing her with encouragement, feedback and direction was especially exciting, but nothing was more gratifying for me than seeing her succeed.

Margie: Amy was so incredibly encouraging. I would call her and ask her about snacks, or to look at my week’s logs on My Fitness Pal, and she would honestly tell me what to tweak. She also was amazing at helping me find ways to change up my exercise routines, and she encouraged me to get a trainer, which I did. I don’t think I did much for her, actually, except for when we were together and I stopped giving her a hard time about the restaurants we chose and the constant checking in with the MFP app on the cell phone to log in or to figure out what to eat. I used to resent it, and now we do it together. Also, this journey had a side benefit of a lot of soul-searching, which helped us understand our relationship a great deal more. Last, I love when she calls me her “tiny mommy.” How cool is it that over this year-and-a-half journey, Amy would go into her closet and give me her size 12s, 10s and 8s? I call them my “hand-me-ups.”

RT: Many women will find inspiration in your website. So far, what’s been the most rewarding aspect of sharing your stories?

Margie: First of all, building the website together was amazing. I didn’t do much except provide content and pictures, but Amy built a fabulous site with so many great things on it. We are both very busy, and it’s hard enough to get to the gym. We made up very cool business cards, which I share with complete strangers. No matter where I go, if there’s an opportunity to tell people that at age 64, I have lost a whole person, I will do it. I will whip out my fat picture and share my story. I know that other people have been inspired by our story and have started their own weight loss journeys, and I am so proud of them. I am so happy to see that we’ve energized other people, both men and women, no matter how old they are, to take control of their lives. I would absolutely love to speak to groups about the experience—there is so much more to share!

Amy: The most rewarding thing for me is hearing that it’s inspired other people to actually get started. To make the choice to do something about their weight. That was what I hoped for when we originally started this site—to show people that success is possible, and for them to accept nothing less than success until they get there.

Read more about Amy and Margie’s inspirational journey on their website. And please share your own weight-loss success stories and struggles with us below!

Photos by Christina Florada Photography.