Do-it-yourself medicine

Health care reform for three Fox Valley residents meant turning their lifestyles around. Morbidly obese, one woman lost more than 200 pounds. After a trip to the doctor, another woman opted for exercise over medication, with some dramatic results. And one man decided to get off the couch and is now in the best shape of his life. These are their stories.

Delores Thomas was pretty certain she was going to die.

The 47-year-old Aurora woman was lying in a bed at Edward Hospital last year, where she had been rushed from her Naperville job after falling ill.

Hooked up to oxygen and heart monitors, Thomas remembers thinking it wasn't all that big of a deal because, after all, we're all going to die at some time.

To Thomas, death was OK. Already a Type 2 diabetic, with asthma and high blood pressure, her heart rate and blood pressure were pushing stroke levels. She weighed almost 400 pounds and she had given up.

"I had my chips and my cookies, I was OK," she said, remembering how she ate from the hospital bed. "The only thing in my mind was the giant Hershey bar with almonds I had waiting at home."

Thomas begged the doctors to let her leave the hospital. "Ma'am," they said, "there's no way in the world you can go home."

"I would have died that night," Thomas recalled.

It took two days at Edward to get her blood pressure back to normal, and the same amount of time to get her car back into a fast-food line.

"I remember I stopped and got fried chicken on my way home," she said. "I still didn't get it."

When her parents passed away within a year of each other in early 2000, Thomas, an only child, hit an emotional bottom. The mother of one grown son felt helpless, and turned to food to cope. Always a chubby teenager, Thomas didn't hit morbidly obese levels until her mid 30s.

With the weight came a host of medical problems, medications and self-esteem issues. Hospital visits became routine.

Suddenly, reality hit Thomas halfway through a stack of Pringles.

"It came just like lightning," she recalled. "I'm 45, I'm going to die."

The daily chicken wing, banana pudding, candy bar and ice, cold Pepsi breakfasts would have to go. The potato wedges, the Pringles, and yes, even the comforting candy were nothing but false friends, she realized. So Thomas reached out to a real one: coworker William Apostolos, who had reached weight loss goals of his own.

"Haven't we tried this before?" Apostolos asking hesitantly. Indeed they had, just six months earlier. Thomas failed to keep up her end of the bargain.

"But Bill," she said. "This time I'm dying."

She was sick of losing breath just walking through a store; sick of scouring the mall for places to lean, a bench to sit on, a moment to rest. This time, Thomas vowed to make a change.

Cutting out the silent killers in her diet (sweets, fried foods, sodas), Thomas shed 15 pounds in a single week. With advice from her doctor, she followed a simple weight loss plan; within two months had lost more than 40 pounds. When she added workouts to her regimen, the additional weight flew off.

Six months into her new lifestyle, Delores had already lost more than 100 pounds. Her self-esteem was rising, her energy was increasing, and eventually even her wardrobe expanded.

"My (big) clothes were my security blanket," she remembered thinking. But when sales associates recommended her actual size, a 10-12 and not a 36, her jaw dropped.

"Hold my purse," she told the lady. "I'll take this and this and this…"

Thomas's own doctors couldn't even recognize her at this point, but the boys at the gym were certainly paying attention. The single mother, and now grandmother, was beaming. Life suddenly seemed like it was beginning instead of ending. The medications were gone, along with the health problems and imminent threat of death.

"All I take now is a multi-vitamin," Thomas said proudly last week. "Medication is not a cure, but a pacifier. It's not a green light to keep doing what you're doing. You have to change your lifestyle."

The medical savings alone, she said, have been tremendous. Thirty dollars a month for the gym, versus hundreds of dollars in doctor's visits and medications seemed like a no-brainer.

A vegetarian now, Thomas almost has a stroke just thinking about her past indulgences. Breakfast now consists of some organic peanut butter, multi-grain cracker bars, fruit and water. Physical activity now happens at the gym, and not the kitchen table.

Now weighing around 170 pounds, Thomas is writing a book about her experience, dating, and hopes to become a certified personal trainer. She keeps a food journal, plans out her meals, and hits Bally's in Naperville three times a week to exercise. However, keeping this routine up wasn't easy.

"I fell off the wagon," she said. "I cheated … but I got right back on. I didn't beat myself up over it." Instead, Thomas keeps things simple by following one cardinal rule:

"I eat to live, and I don't live to eat," she said. "I look at food as nutrition and not as a stepping stone to get me through my next crisis. My suggestion is that life is too precious to sit by the sideline, but remember that Rome wasn't built in a day."

-- Erika Wurst, staff writer

Naperville accountant Marlys Costain is living the health care reform ideals of preventive medicine and the medical home.

She just doesn't call them that. She's made them part of her lifestyle.

She and her husband are outdoorsy types, preferring to spend their vacations hiking and camping rather than sitting by some pool. But when Costain was overweight, she started noticing longer treks would leave her out of breath.

Her doctor was ready to put her on medication for cholesterol and blood pressure, and she said, "Let's see if I can do it myself."

Costain, 62, has health insurance: Cost of the prescription drugs was not an issue.

"I just didn't want to put that stuff in my body," she said.

That appointment 3 1/2 years ago inspired her to overhaul her health. She joined the Edward Health and Fitness Center and created a routine — weight training Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, cardio training or yoga or another fitness class Tuesdays and Thursdays.

"I'm over there five days a week, and it has helped tremendously," she said. "I'm comfortable over there."

Since August 2008, she also was working out with a personal trainer once a week for 24 weeks. Now it's once a month to keep variety in her routine.

"She shows me different exercises and how to do them right," Costain said.

Exercise is only one part of the story, though. Costain's trainer also helped her overhaul her diet. Now she keeps a food diary and records what she eats and when she exercises.

"It's a godsend," she said. "It keeps me on track. If I'm going to eat something stupid, I'm going to have to write this down."

Costain also plans meals before she goes to the grocery store. She used to come home from work, throw something together for dinner "and wouldn't stop eating until bedtime." Now it helps her to have a healthy menu planned a week in advance — and have a workout right after work.

"After an hour or two of exercise, the last thing you want to do is go home and eat junk food," she said.

For that reason, Costain calls Whole Foods Market another "godsend" in her life. The grocery store's deli encourages her to try new foods. If she likes them, she looks up the recipe online.

Her doctor is pleased with the results. Costain's blood pressure is normal, her HDL ("good") cholesterol is up to 80 from 42 a year ago, and her total cholesterol is in the normal range.

Costain said she wants to stay as healthy as possible. She loves spending time outdoors with her husband, and she wants to keep doing that.

They are planning a vacation in March. The itinerary includes a lot of time for hiking.

-- Katie Foutz, staff writer

Joe Ignoffo is just your regular joe.

Ignoffo lives in Bartlett, where he runs his own remodeling business, Future Windows. He gradually gained weight over time and, like most Americans, was about 25 pounds overweight in January.

It's what many, Ignoffo included, might describe as slightly overweight.

"If I wore black," he said, "people would think I looked good."

Numbers posted that month by the National Center for Health Statistics showed more than 70 percent of Americans to be overweight. Of those, 34 percent were obese.

Ignoffo wasn't yet at the point he had medical problems because of his weight. He didn't feel incredibly self-conscious about his weight. He didn't feel like it was having a huge affect on his life or work.

But one January day, sitting on his couch watching TV, he decided to take his health into his own hands.

"Who knows why?" he said. "People think about getting in shape. People think about doing it for years and years, and it never really happens."

Ignoffo has seen this attitude firsthand: He used to manage health clubs. People would join with the best of intentions about getting in shape and improving their health, and he'd never see them again at the club.

He knew he'd never stick to a diet, so he signed up for Nutrisystem, the meal delivery plan of heart-healthy, high-fiber meals touted ad nauseam on TV commercials.

Those meals worked, Ignoffo said. And once he started shedding pounds, "It definitely motivated me to get out and do things."

One of those things was buying a bike. Sometimes he'll take it out on Elgin's bike path. Sometime he'll ride it to meet his wife for lunch.

"It's for the adventure and the fun of it," he said. "You get on a bike, and you say, 'OK, where am I going to go today?'"

Last month, on a trip with friends to Florida, he left several days ahead to see how far he could make it on his bike.

His goal was to cross the Ohio River into Louisville, and he made it. It took him four days to go those 380 miles before he called his friends to pick him up. It took them 6 ˝ hours to reach him.

Bike riding is good exercise — sure, Ignoffo said. It's helped him maintain the weight he's lost on the diet. But mostly, he does it for fun.

He bowls for fun, too, which has provided him a visual representation of the weight he's lost so far. His bowling ball weighs 16 pounds, and he's lost 25. That was a lot of extra weight to carry around, he said, and he can feel a difference in his health without it.

The exercise also has helped him reduce stress.

"I have a business. I have stress. I have a lot going on," he said. "It's definitely made a difference in how I feel and how I move."

Ignoffo also feels good about the fact he's wearing a size he's never worn before. In fact, he can even borrow pants from his two sons.

And his weight loss, taking control of his health before it became a problem, is nothing anybody couldn't do, he said.

"I don't know (why)," Ignoffo said. "I just did it, thank God."

-- Emily McFarlan, staff writer