About 15 years ago, life was not so good for Joe. His job involved handling complaints from consumers who had been allegedly wronged by banks. These letters were often spattered with nasty words that are not repeatable here. It was Joe’s job to investigate the bank to determine if any laws had been broken. This focus was riddled with negativity. Besides for the stress of handling complaints, he was in the throws of a difficult divorce, faced with splitting up assets, and finding some new digs. He went for joint custody of his children and bought a split entry house a few blocks from his son’s middle school and close to his daughter’s high school. So he began parenting one week on and one week off. He remembers one particular night on an off-week: he came home after attending a Twins game (he tried to find someone to use the other ticket but couldn’t) and walked into a cold, dark, and empty house. No kids, no furniture, no food. He slept on the carpet with a blanket and pillow.

With all these stressors, Joe did what any normal person would do —turned to food for comfort. So started the late night chips and dip followed by a creamy bowl of double chocolate ice-cream. He said he often ate from dinner-time till bed-time.

Joe knew his pants were getting tight but he didn’t have a scale. On New Year's Eve Day, he took the day off work so he could take the kids to the Y, swimming. He stepped on the scale in the locker room and was shocked as the needle spun east. He was two-twenty, ninety-pounds past his ideal weight. It had happened so fast. He thought then, I have to turn this around. But it would not happen immediately.

By the time I met Joe he had lost some but was still heavy. I didn’t care about that because I thought he was cute and smart among a million other qualities. Even though Joe was overweight, he didn’t act like it. He was very active and never complained about physical exercise. During this time he would put on his sneakers and go for a run, reminiscent of the days in his thirties. He'd start out of the house with severe determination to go the distance, complete the long run, and once home, pile into a chair in exhaustion. Then the next time it was just too big of a mountain to climb so he would skip the run and gave up on the heavy exercise. He realizes as he looks back, that he should have started slowly and built back up to it.

Joe also had sleep apnea (pauses in breathing) from the extra weight around his neck and throat area. He slept with a C-pap machine which functions by putting pressure on your airways so you don’t skimp on the breath in-take. Ironically, I loved this machine. It had a soft white noise sound to it that was 100% better than the sound of snoring and gasping for breath and since he was tethered to it, he slept quietly and didn’t toss and turn as a person who has sleep apnea often does.

We got married on March 4, 2006. Soon after that, Joe started stopping by the Y after work. Now that his kids were older, he could take the time to do this. Then, the first Thanksgiving after our wedding we went upnorth. Now many families are all about food on Thanksgiving. But I think the Liautauds have a double dose of lust for food so our dinner plates were replenished throughout our three day stay in the north woods. Pumpkin pie, cheesecake, stuffing, turkey, you know the drill. Joe says, “It wasn’t you’re family’s fault, but it was disgusting how much I ate.” He said he was so uncomfortable and felt lousy after stuffing the gullet for three days that he came home and made a secret pact to quit the madness.

About two months after Thanksgiving I noticed Joe was looking thinner.
“What are you doing,” I asked?
“Just changed the way I eat.”
“How?”I asked. The weight seemed to be falling off of him. He was twenty pounds lighter.
“Just eating healthy,” he said.
So months went by and after nine months, Joe had lost ninety pounds from his highest weight. He never said a word about his plan. He told me that he decided to keep it to himself because if he talked about it, that would put pressure on him. But after a month or so, I noticed Joe's pants were hanging on him.When I finally got the details, he said, “It’s not rocket science. I just eat low - carbs, mostly fruits and vegetables. Have a salad for lunch and don’t eat after dinner, workout. ”

So now it has been eight years since Joe lost the weight. He works out at the Y five days a week for two hours or in the warm months, goes out for a seven or eight mile run. What I think is amazing about Joe is that he just did this all silently. He confesses that after he lost the first twenty pounds, he wondered if he could possibly get back to his ideal weight. So he kept up the healthy diet and soon he was back to his little self. I didn’t know when I married him that I would have this svelte dude to call mine. It all just happened right before my eyes. He never shared his struggles, I am sure there were some, but when Joe makes up his mind to do something, he just does it. He certainly made a 180.

I asked Joe, “You’ve had a history of making up your mind and carrying it out. Do you remember when you first learned that?”

“Well, my Grandma Schneberger had a big influence on me. She was a hard working, take-charge kind of person. We spent a lot of time on her farm as kids. It was a real treat. A story my Dad told about an event that happened before I was born went like this: Grandma kept asking Grandpa for an indoor bathroom. He was dragging his feet. She got fed up so one day she went out in the storage room and noticed it could make a perfect bathroom. She grabbed the crow bar and went in there and started ripping out the walls.

“What the hell are you doing?” Grandpa asked.
“Making this into a bathroom.”
“How can we afford that?”
“I’ve got it all figured out. We can do it.”
My grandma sold eggs and had been saving her money. She hired Frank to do the plumbing and soon they had their indoor bathroom. If something was going wrong, Grandma would have a good cry and then she would snap out of it and be inspired to find a way. She was very determined. She killed her own chickens for supper and visited the local bank to get a loan for the farm.

The first time I realized you could work for something and make it happen was when I was eight. I told my Dad I wanted a bike so I could deliver papers more quickly. Well, we couldn’t afford it, we had six kids. My dad told me there’s something called an installment plan. He took me down to the local hardware store and talked to the owner. I walked out of the store with my new bike and a promissory note to pay $5.00 each saturday when I got paid from my paper route. After about three or four months, I had it paid off. I got my first car that way too. I had a savings account from my jobs and used the money to help pay for my school clothes in the fall. I’ve always had the impression I could get or do something if I really wanted it. I guess my upbringing helped me learn that.

In case you want to know what Joe eats and does to keep his weight in check.
Here is a typical day’s food and exercise:

“—Breakfast- half cup bran buds or granola, one apple cut up, handful of strawberries, one banana, kefir, coffee with half and half.
—Lunch-Salad with lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, cucumbers, assorted veggies, no dressing.
Workout- run five miles on treadmill, do plank for seven minutes, what? Yep. Pushups, sit-ups two hours total. Mind you, he has been working out like this for many years now. At first he was at the Y for an hour, but then gradually increased it.
—Snack- cheese, rice crackers, olives
—Dinner- Steak or fish, fresh vegetable, squash, lima beans, salad, iced tea.
—After dinner: Numerous Kemps sugar free popsicles while he reads the paper standing at the counter.

He eats popcorn, and bread now and again, like twice a month, and same for desert. He’s not like me who is a food-aholic and can’t eat these things “once-in-a-while.” If I take a bite of cake, it’s the whole thing.”

— Joe's Typical Day of Meals

So today, Joe no longer needs his C-pap machine. He received a promotion at work so handling consumer complaints is history. He has a pillow-top bed to crawl into and lives (with me) in a home on a hill overlooking a wetland, a house full of furniture and cozy comforts. He enjoys his morning run through the country-side and comes home exhilarated. He says he loves running, especially in the spring-time in Oak Grove when the lilacs bloom and smells of newly mown grass waft through the gently sloping hills. He's also been seen running the back roads upnorth in Wisconsin where the pines are thick, the hills are gentle, and the terrain varied. He’s seen a bear or two (without consequence). He also likes biking. As he looks back, he says he doesn't know how he let himself get that carried away, because he feels so much better and has a lot more energy. None of this could have happened until he took off the weight and did a 180 in attitude. Many people have told him that he is an inspiration to them because they have watched Joe make the distance.

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Joe Works it Down

Judy Liautaud