Bridgett Gillespie of Southgate, who gained weight when coping with the stress of being her father’s caretaker after an accident and when he was diagnosed with a serious illness, decided to take care of herself after his death, and turned to Weight Watchers, where she lost 77 pounds and learned that healthy eating was about feeling good as well as eating good.
While some women gain weight after a break-up or childbirth, as the caretaker for her ill father, Bridgett Gillespie, 33, of Southgate turned to food to cope with her stress.
It wasn’t until she was ready to start caring for herself that she successfully lost 77 pounds through Weight Watchers, learning that healthy eating was as much about feeling good as it was about looking good.
“He got into an accident, and I fell into a deep depression, and I ate my feelings,” she said. “I started noticing from then on I started gaining weight.”
Following his accident, her father was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Schlerosis, from which he passed away four years ago.
“After his death I really packed on the pounds,” Gillespie said. “I was trying to fill a void, and stress is what brings it on for me.”
She said at the time she didn’t know how to communicate her stress, and she tends to avoid confrontation.
“If something is upsetting me, it is really hard for me to put it out there,” Gillespie said. “So I would eat my feelings instead.”
Bridgett Gillespie of Southgate at the beach before and after she lost 77 pounds through Weight Watchers.
Gillespie said a year after her father’s death, she became aware of what her stress eating was doing to her, and when her grandmother asked her to join Weight Watchers with her, three years ago, she acquiesced.
“We were really close, and I thought it would be good support for each other,” she said. “My first week I lost 8.6 pounds. Most of it was water weight, but it made me think ‘you can do this.’”
Gillespie said her mind was clearer, and she began to grieve her father differently.
“Instead of grieving and eating, I was able to enjoy the stories and not choose food over it,” she said.
Since food is not something you can just give up, Gillespie said she found learning about portion control and food choices to be healthy lessons as she began to think of food as fuel which keeps her body healthy.
“My mind started shifting a little bit,” she said. “I lost about 20 pounds before I started going to the gym, and then I felt I was able to control it.”
Gillespie said she still has a note to herself taped to the inside of her pantry door which reads, “The answer is not in here.” She said she also changed her schedule so she was working out in the evenings when she was more prone to snacking, especially while watching television.
Bridgett Gillespie of Southgate before she started her weight loss journey.
She said she lost most of the weight during a year and a half, and then when she started doing specific toning exercises she gained some weight back through her newly acquired muscle tone.
Gillespie said she went into a Weight Watchers Center once a week when she was in her weight loss phase, and until about a month ago, she worked for them for two years part time after she achieved her goal weight. She is now a lifetime member, and weighs herself at a center once a month.
“I don’t own a scale and I don’t recommend it,” she said. “I think that you can get too obsessed with the number and not how your body feels.”
Gillespie is a freelance hair and make-up artist, and said she ends up in a lot of people’s pre-wedding photos.
“I am in the public eye,” she said. “It was difficult for me, being in photos. I would see myself the way I was, and now I am not ashamed to be in someone’s photos.”
Gillespie said she knows she didn’t gain all her weight overnight, and she won’t gain it back from one meal.
“I try to take my energy and put it into a positive light, instead of filling my mouth full of stuff,” she said. “For a long time, that is what I did, and everywhere you go, there is food. So when I am at parties, I stay away from the food table.”
Gillespie said she drinks plenty of water, and avoids pop and sugary drinks.
“I changed my whole life,” she said. “When you change your life in a positive, healthy way, you have more energy.”
Gillespie said buying clothes used to be traumatic.
“I remember I would go to buy clothes, and I would just cry in the dressing room and leave with nothing,” she said. “I hid myself. I wasn’t proud of what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop.”
Gillespie said that in some ways, keeping weight off is harder than losing it.
“People think once they have lost it, that’s it, it is never coming back,” she said. “No — you have to work at it forever.”
Gillespie said she hopes she can help motivate others.
“Life gets in the way,” she said. “We just need to find different ways to handle stress and emotions instead of eating it.”
For more information about Weight Watchers, go to weightwatchers.com.
