HEALTHY LIVING:

LEAP program helps participants change their lives after gastric bypass surgery

She's become a familiar face at the Downtown Y, working out up to four times a week.

A former high school diver, tennis player and disco queen, Debbie Bredestege used to carry 278 pounds on her 5’3” frame.

She had high blood pressure and a bad knee from osteoarthritis, but as long as her blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels were acceptable, she remained complacent about her weight.

It wasn't until her blood pressure rose and she could no longer work her vending job at Brown’s Stadium that she decided to take action, by signing up for the LEAP program with the Y and St. Vincent Charity Hospital.

Since then, she's lost an astounding 115 pounds in a year. When she hit the 100 pound loss mark, she had her picture taken with Santa.

LEAP is a lifestyle change program that teaches participants how to eat, exercise and live healthier lives. The program has qualification factors for gastric bypass surgery, which Debbie underwent in June 2009.

Between February and June, Debbie lost 33 pounds through her new lifestyle. Where it used to take her 20 minutes to walk a mile, by the day of her surgery, she had that time down to 16.42 minutes per mile. She now walks an average of 3 miles in 45 minutes.

Within days after her surgery, Debbie began walking 3.5 miles a day. Soon after, she started lifting weights.

Following the program and successful surgery, Debbie continued her Y membership and now says she couldn’t have done it without the support of the Y's members and staff, who encouraged her to stay the course.

A coworker had the surgery around the same time as Debbie. The coworker didn’t make the lifestyle changes, and has gained all weight back.

Debbie works daily at her new lifestyle. She says that it takes 3 months to make a habit. She is even to the point where after taking back-to-back classes, she has found herself thinking, "I can do the treadmill."

Debbie says she hasn’t been this thin since her 30’s, when she was engaged to a merchant marine. While he was away on long trips, she says she consoled herself with food.

Debbie is a poster child for what changing your behaviors can do. She can now see that it was the food she was eating that caused her to feel so bad. She now looks at food as energy. Her thought process is completely different than it was a year ago.

Says Debbie, "Just do it. You can go to all the support groups and talk about it all you want. You can go online and read about it, but until you are out there working at it, exercising and making the right choices, it just won’t happen. You have to keep at it. You have to keep working at it until it’s habit.”

Well said.