Editor’s note: This is our final Success Story. Since the start of this column, 18 1/2 years ago, I have always been grateful to report these stories of struggle, triumph and inspiration. Thank you to everyone who courageously shared their story with me and my readers. — Michelle C. Brooks
When she started: January 2020 and again on Feb. 22, 2022.
Age: 46
Height: 5 feet 7 inches
Total pounds lost: 50
Personal life: “I am married,” Mattingly said. “I have a husband and four kids all in high school, a senior, two juniors and a freshman. I teach 8th-grade Bible at Fellowship Christian School, and we live in Woodstock.”
The lifestyle change: “My mom had done Sparkle Wellness with wellness coach Jacynta Harb for several years (Her mother, Christine Ward, was featured in a Success Story in April). It was January of 2020, I started with the group and then COVID hit,” Mattingly said. “We were doing Zoom meetings, but it just wasn’t enough.” This year she decided to try again. “I think I need the one-on-one accountability,” she said, “so I started again on 2-22-22. I thought this was the perfect date. I will remember this was my official start date with her. She said we’re going to do one thing this week, and with each decision, we are building momentum. That was huge for me, step by step building up the momentum.”
Change in eating habits: “A big part of it was tracking. ... It wasn’t about necessarily changing my diet — it was recognizing what I was eating, recognizing those shifts and recognizing where those changes had to come in. The big part for me: I was making the food about the flavor and not about the fuel.”
Kari’s steps to change:
1. Making the decision: “I tried to focus on the decision, that it was built on my choice. Nobody forced me into it, nobody told me I had to do it. It wasn’t like I had to white knuckle it, it was my voice — I was making that decision.”
2. Tracking: “I learned really quickly to be honest with myself. There’s no point in tracking if I’m not going to track all of it and be honest with myself, be transparent with myself.”
3. One change per week: “Choosing one change and adding that in for the week. This week I’m going to focus on drinking water, the next thing this week I am going to focus on getting more fruits and veggies.
Exercise routine: “I wouldn’t say that I have a set routine,” Mattingly said. “I have my weekly decisions and my daily decisions. I think about how do I move my body today? If I don’t have lunch duty, I will walk a couple of miles around the track at school. I love hiking, I might go for a hike on the weekends. I want to improve my strength, so strength training is a challenge now. I see this as a lifelong process. There’s no immediacy.”
Biggest challenge: “Reprogramming my desires. I had fallen into this pattern of I’m going to do this and my reward is I’m going to eat the food. ... That repetition and reward were creating this desire, you know, trying to figure out how to change what I desire,” Mattingly said. “It’s such a mental thing having to change the way I think about what I want and why I want it.”
The struggle: “How long I waited,” Mattingly said. “Thirty-year-old me would have been so grateful for making the change earlier, so I didn’t want 50-year-old me looking back at 46-year-old me and saying I wish you would have started sooner.”
Kari’s top tips:
1. Start now: “Tomorrow isn’t going to be any different. Your situation isn’t going to change. Monday isn’t going to feel any different than Friday — make the decision and start.”
2. Give yourself grace: “I would never speak to other people the way I speak to myself internally, trying to change that internal dialogue, saying, ’Today wasn’t great, what am I going to change now?’ ” Mattingly said. “There’s so much guilt and disgust and disappointment. It’s so unnecessary but really normal. Treating yourself with grace and kindness and changing the self-talk.”
3. Change one thing: “I would say change one new thing. Build momentum and move your body.”
How her life changed: “I had to buy a whole lot of new clothes. ... It’s been a switch to change back to body-flattering clothing and not being constantly drawn to the baggy camouflage I was drawn to,” Mattingly said. “Being honest about my emotions and how I’m feeling and being OK with the current emotion. Otherwise, I would just try to suppress it, or I wallow in it. And sometimes acknowledging it and choosing to move on is a better way to go.”
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