My Story

Kate Mancino~ 21 ~ Christian ~ Bucknell University :)

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*If you don’t want to read the long version you can skip to the bottom to see where I am now*

I was an overweight kid. A happy kid, but one who grew up watching the food channel and cooking big dinners with my very Italian Dad. With divorced parents, food was one of the big ways we connected and I loved our dinner making time. By 8th grade, though, my doctor had been saying I was overweight for years. I wanted to blame it on my yearly broken bone (arm, ankle, foot, other arm, other ankle, ankle again and it goes on). That wasn’t an excuse though, so my mom helped put me on a diet. I learned how to count calories and exercised on an elliptical or walked around the block every day. It worked too. I started February 1st and by April I had gone from 150 pounds (and 5 foot) to 120(ish) pounds. That was when it stopped being so healthy though. I realized I didn’t HAVE to eat all of my 1200 calories so I started cutting back. I spent the summer working and slowly understanding how low I could keep my calories.

By the start of freshman year of high school I was at 110, 5’1, and upping my exercise. I joined the tennis team and would bike 10-15 miles per day, often more. As the school year went on I became increasingly unhappy in every way, and took it out on my weight. I continued to cut my calories until I was eating 400-600 a day. By the winter I started getting sick. I spent most of January out of school with horrible migraines, fatigue, nausea. I didn’t know then, no one knew then but looking back after 6 years it was because of the way I was eating. 

I decided to change then, I asked for help. I started talking to a therapist who truly helped me. At the time I also applied to transfer schools, I wanted to go to an amazing boarding school called Peddie. I made a deal with my therapist- if I was accepted to the school I would return to healthy eating habits. With only 4 openings the chances of me getting in were low but I got in anyway. In accordance with my deal I went from 101 pounds to about 115.

For a long time I’ve known that Peddie saved me, it gave me reason to pull myself out of the disordered eating spiral I was in and I wish I could say I stayed that way but I didn’t.

In January of my sophomore year I got hurt. Not by sports or by fall, but by standing around with friends. My right kneecap dislocated from a step. I popped it back in and continued on that night. However, for the next 6 months I was faced with almost daily chronic dislocations, far too many to count. I would stand up or sit down or roll over in bed and it would pop and I would push it back in.

In June I had reconstructive surgery. After a 6 hour operation that combined 4 different procedures I was left with a stable right knee cap, 2 big scars that took years to accept, and a 3.5 year recovery. 

The other thing I was left with was weight gain. Over the course of that 3.5 year recovery I was as minimally active as possible. Walking often hurt and stairs always hurt, so cardio and most strength training wasn’t possible. While my eating was never excessively bad, phases of crash diets and returns to normal eating habits caused me to gain a LOT of weight. The 120 I was going into the surgery turned into 170 after my recovery.

When my right knee finally stabilized I knew I needed to lose weight. I started watching my food and exercising every day. Then the inevitable happened. After years of leaning heavily on my left knee, it too dislocated. This time I knew what to do. I took extremely good care of it and still do. Even though that stopped my ability to exercise for a few months I’ve only had 2 dislocations on that side.

Going back a step, I attended Fordham University for the first 1.5 years of college. In that time period I only gained 10 pounds but I became increasingly unhappy with the school and myself. I knew after my first year that I wanted to transfer, and applied in Fall ‘10. By the time I was applying, however, I was back on a crash diet. This time though, my motivation had shifted. I only cut my calories back to 900, but I went to the gym at least twice a day because it was an escape from a situation I didn’t like. 

Once again my dream school saved me. I was accepted to Bucknell University and started there in January of ‘11. It is absolutely where I was meant to be and I have been more successful than ever in my time there. In my happiness with my new school I stopped crash dieting for good, but I also gained my final 10 pounds, bringing me to a high weight of 183.

When I got home from school that year (2011) I broke down. I was 183 pounds (and now 5’5), and felt like I had been on a diet for 6 years. I was exhausted with weight loss, diet, everything because I felt like I had never done anything horribly wrong to become that weight. I never ate fast food, I don’t drink soda, I was vegetarian! I made the decision then that this would be the last diet I ever had to do because it would finally be the healthy way.

If you read all of that I’m very impressed! Let me tell you where I am now.

I’ve learned that there is no time limit on a diet, and that’s been my greatest help. I don’t need to be a certain weight by school or holiday break or this event or that event, I just have to keep pushing until I get where I want to be. I’ve found that this thought is the key to keeping myself from unhealthy methods. 

I work fitness into my daily life. With school and work it’s hard to always have time so I make sure that every single day I’m as active as possible and make every excuse I can to walk around with extra trips to the library or climbing my school’s famous hill between each class. I LOVE cooking and make up every recipe I eat. 

I started my final weight loss journey on June 4th at 183 pounds, 43% body fat, a jean size 12/14, and terrified of falling back into my unhealthy past. 

Today, I am 138 pounds, 16% body fat, a jean size 2 and still fighting to stay healthy but this time I’m winning. I’m not alone, I ask for help when I need it and have a great support system, but every morning I wake up and remind myself that this way, the healthy wayy, is the ONLY WAY to make all my hard work worth it and keep the weight off for good. I am back to school now, back to my double major double minor academics, back to my division 1 varsity golf team, back to my beloved barista/ student manager and tour guide jobs, my boyfriend, my church, my friends, my newspaper column, and I’m taking with me a self that I’m proud to be because I’ve fought through so much to be at this finally happy point.

If you want to know exactly what I ate and did to lose weight (and what I still do now) go to my “How I Lost the Weight” page! :)