How weight loss is helping one woman overcome chronic health issues
Key Takeaways:
- Donna Fortson has battled spine problems and liver issues during her adult life.
- Losing weight was imperative to her recovery.
- Fortson was referred to the Center for Nutrition and Weight Management at OSF HealthCare.
- By making modifications to her diet, Fortson has lost more than 100 pounds in the past 1 ½ years.
Donna Fortson has struggled with health challenges for most of her adult life.
It started with serious back issues, which turned out to be hereditary. She has rapid degeneration of her joints, discs and vertebrae, a condition her daughter now has too. Fortson has endured six back surgeries with more planned. Given her situation, it’s imperative the Rockford, Illinois, resident, doesn’t carry any extra weight.
“I've had to go through a lot of recovery,” Fortson says. “I have a lot of metal inside me, so it's hard to recover from that. I’ve been inactive. And that led me to gain a lot of weight.”
But there’s more.
Fortson also learned she has fatty liver disease and liver fibrosis. She had gastric sleeve surgery to help with weight loss. Then her gastroenterologist recommended Fortson see a dietitian to develop a plan to lose more weight and keep it off.
Finding support
For nearly 1½ years, Fortson has been a client of the Center for Nutrition and Weight Management at OSF HealthCare Saint Anthony Medical Center in Rockford. The road to weigh loss hasn’t been easy. But the good news is Fortson is down more than 100 pounds.
Sean Pavlick, a dietitian with OSF HealthCare, is the architect of Fortson’s weight loss program. He says the key to losing that much weight is breaking it down in portions.
“If you want to lose 100 pounds, OK, but let's take that in chunks of 20 pounds, just to keep your head in a better position,” he says. “Because there's a lot of psychology that goes into all of this, and it gets very discouraging, very fast.”
Food has always provided comfort for Fortson – through good times and bad. Doughnuts, cakes, ice cream. Sweets, she says, were her downfall.
“I have a lot of anxiety with all the stuff going on. So that's my comfort. It wasn't drugs or alcohol. That was my vice,” Fortson says. That's the reason I kept gaining weight. I had to sit around a lot. So, what else to do but sit there and eat my sorrow away?”
But once Fortson started seeing Pavlick, it was time to get serious about her health. Her back problems were one thing; the liver issues opened Fortson’s eyes to what her future could hold.
She meets Pavlick once a week. She weighs in, reviews her food diary and talks about any challenges she’s facing.
These days, Fortson has replaced sweet treats with fresh fruit and vegetables. She reads labels at the grocery store and ignores the temptations of making bad decisions. She’s sworn off soda, something she insisted she’d never do. She now drinks plenty of water.
Pavlick has seen significant changes in Fortson since their first meeting.
“I think it's a big attitude change with Donna, for sure. With a lot of patients, there's such a reluctance to change,” he says. “And any dietitian would agree, we hear it all the time, ‘Well, I'm just not going to do that. You can't get me to make those changes.’ I like to use the word incremental changes, or we say SMART goals, where it's things that you can tackle, the realistic changes. And Donna's done all those things and made the changes that are maintainable.”
Staying the course
Recently, Fortson indulged in a small portion of cake at a birthday party. On the way home she experienced a headache that she attributes to cutting out all sugar from her diet.
Fortson and Pavlick say having people in your corner is important for anyone traveling along a weight loss journey.
“There's peaks and valleys with everyone, but I think something that Donna would say as well, it's the constant support system,” Pavlick says. “And when there is a setback, it's not a big negative thing. We try to put a positive spin on things and reinforce good attitudes.”
Fortson says she feels good these days. She’s got more energy, her blood work results are improved, and she’s feeling better about life. While she’s pleased with her progress, she knows weight loss will be a foe she battles for the rest of her life.
“I have a spring in my step, and I look forward to coming in every week and getting weighed, which is weird, because I used to hate the scale,” she says, laughing. “Now I'm like, ‘yes, I better be down.’ It's a challenge for me, but I look forward to it. I've dedicated my life to it.”
For more information about weight loss, visit the OSF HealthCare website.