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At a doctor's appointment in January 1997, Linda Key, then 38, wasn't surprised to weigh in at 330 pounds. A married mother of two grown sons from Oklahoma City, Linda had always struggled with her weight. And after her first marriage ended in the early '90s, she had steadily gained weight, eventually more than 150 pounds.But Linda was surprised to hear that her legs had poor circulation, and the condition could be pre-diabetic. "The doctor told me if I didn't lose weight, I'd likely develop diabetes and could lose both my legs by the time I was 60," recalls Linda.
About 18.2 million people in the U.S. have diabetes, estimates the American Diabetic Association (ADA), and about one-third, or 5.2 million, don't know it. Prevalence of the disease has increased nearly 50 percent in the past decade; the rise is directly linked to the 60 percent increase in obesity over the same period, says the ADA.
"The problem of obesity is so staggering, so out of control, that we have to do something," says Walter Willett, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, and an advisor on the Reader's Digest Family Index.
Like so many patients who know they are seriously overweight, Linda left her doctor's office that day in a state of denial. "I just didn't believe I would get diabetes," she says. "I couldn't accept it would happen to me." When she decided to have stomach-stapling surgery a few months later, it was mostly concerns over her appearance rather than diabetes that prompted her to have the drastic weight-loss procedure.
But her surgery, which was once more popular than today's gastric bypass, failed, as it does in about 20 percent of cases. And instead of the slim figure Linda had dreamed of, she remained at more than 300 pounds.
In September 2002, she experienced wrenching chest pains. "I was certain I was having a heart attack," says Linda, who weighed 314 at that point. Terrified, she went to the doctor, where she learned the symptoms were bad heartburn. Her doctor told her, however, that she absolutely had to lose weight or the heart attack could very well be real next time.
"This time -- I suppose it was the pain -- the message got through to me," says Linda. "I realized I was extremely obese, middle-aged and could drop dead at any minute." Back in her car, she cried and cried. "It finally sunk in that being overweight was killing me. What was I going to do?"
At home, Linda decided to get her mind off her fears by checking her e-mail. Online, she saw an ad for an Internet weight-loss service. On impulse, she clicked on it. "Before I knew it, I was connected to other dieters who wanted to help me," says Linda. "One thing I learned right away was that a quick fix wasn't the answer. If I was going to lose the weight and keep it off, I needed a way to eat that I could live with forever." For that reason, she chose a basic 1,900-calorie-per-day plan in which no foods were forbidden.
Highly motivated, Linda began to read food labels carefully and cut her portion size drastically. She dropped 16 pounds in the first month. But then she was hit with another health scare. Her husband, GW, who works in the IT department of the Oklahoma State Auditor's office, had been suffering horrible headaches and swollen ankles. He was 80 pounds overweight. But despite having a father who had died of diabetes just a year earlier, as well as a mother and sister who had the disease, GW was still surprised when his doctor diagnosed him with it.
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