Port Vue woman's story to appear in Fitness magazine
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Adrian Crouch was at her current weight, 120 pounds, when she was running in the Buffalo Creek Half Marathon on Oct. 15, 2011.
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Childhood obesity carries with it more than extra pounds.
Ask Adrian Crouch.
"There were a couple of periods in my life when I didn't want to continue with my life," Ms. Crouch recalled of the taunting by her peers, her low self-esteem and the emotional lows that plagued her youth.
Today, the Port Vue woman is 23, 5 feet 4 inches tall and 120 pounds after losing 110 pounds since her high school years, when she topped the scales at 230.
Her weight-loss success story will appear in the March issue of Fitness magazine as the month's "I Did It!" feature.
She emailed her story to the magazine in October and said she hopes to encourage others who have weight problems.
"If you want this bad enough, keep trying," she said. "Your life is worth trying again and again."
Ms. Crouch began putting on weight as a fifth-grader at Port Vue Elementary School. At South Allegheny Middle School, she was 5 feet tall and weighed about 180 pounds.
She recalled that she pretended not to care about her classmates' hurtful comments about her weight -- but after school she went home and cried.
Gym classes were the worst, she said, because she was the last one chosen for teams.
"I felt defeated," Ms. Crouch said.
In high school, there were no dates, dances or proms for her.
"I felt bad all the time and kept to myself because I was embarrassed by me," she said.
After graduating from South Allegheny High School in 2006, she tried fad diets -- only to lose and then gain back the pounds.
Then, in April 2009, motivated by "The Biggest Loser," a television show about weight loss, she decided to take action "once and for all," she said.
She started small: She substituted whole grain bread for white bread and drank low-fat dairy products, such as skim milk. She cut out fried foods and snacks and ate more chicken and vegetables.
The first time she weighed herself after a couple of months, she had lost 20 pounds.
"I was jumping up and down in the dressing room," she said of gradually shrinking from size 22 jeans to size 16.
She began walking and exercising in a gym.
She bought the video "Just Dance" for home workouts.
To counter her fear of gaining weight -- which she said was turning into an unhealthy obsession with calorie counting -- she started running.
"I got a lot hungrier and began putting on weight, but my clothes fit as I was gaining muscle weight in my legs.
"I felt better and happier as I was passionate about something," she said.
Today, Ms. Crouch has a perfect 4.0 grade point average in the medical assistant curriculum at Community College of Allegheny County and plans to graduate in August.
As a member of the Steel City Roadrunners Club, she frequently runs 16 miles a day to prepare for a 26.2-mile run in the Dick's Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon on May 6 -- her first marathon.
She is happy in a relationship and proud that this summer she will celebrate her two-year anniversary of losing 110 pounds.
What is not so easy to shed are her painful memories of her formative years.
Her advice for parents is to start teaching good eating habits early, keep junk food out of the house and do not reward good behavior with food.
"It breaks my heart to see obese kids," she said.
First Published February 9, 2012 12:00 am
