Photo by Craig FritzTribune

Tribune

Mary Smith works out at the Jazzercise Academy on Montgomery Boulevard Northeast. Smith said her appearance in national news media for having lost half her size has made her a minor celebrity at the club.

More News Columnists

• Bill Slakey: As Trib closes, many questions remain unasked
• Phill Casaus: Don't cry for us, Albuquerque; it was worth it
• Joline Gutierrez Krueger: My Wall of Fame holds memories of people, stories that have mattered

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

At first, I questioned the existence of Mary Smith, Albuquerque nurse, mother of three and weight-loss phenom as touted by People magazine.

I mean, Mary Smith? Please. Why not Jane Doe? Why not Mary Gutierrez Krueger? Now there's a phony-sounding name.

There she is on the Jan. 8 cover of the mag's annual "Half Their Size" diet issue, smiling in stilettos and form-fitting blouse, the words "LOST 125 LBS." printed across her trim, size 4 torso, her long, blond windswept hair looking nothing like the dowdy dark-brown mushroom Õdo in her "before" picture.

But I had my doubts.

You've seen those infomercials where the fat person looks nothing like the thin one. Because it's not the same person. Because the weight-loss product those images are hawking is just snake oil, baby.

So could Mary Smith and her glamorously thin "after" life be real?

As it turns out, Mary Smith through thick and thin is as real as tiramisu. She understands my skepticism, though, pulling out a photo album that documents her journey from fat to nonfat, which she keeps for the naysayers and maybe to remind herself that, yes, it's all real.

But beyond the shrinking waistline is a bigger story. The transformation of this 40-year-old woman is more than lettuce and Jazzercize.

It begins with a pretty little girl with long, blond hair in Terre Haute, Ind., who at age 8 mustered up the courage to ask: Is life really supposed to be like this?

He hurts her, this man in the big God-fearing family she has been adopted into. He touches her, she tells her adopted mother, makes her do things, private things she does not like or understand.

"And she looks at me and tells me he didn't do anything, it never happened, never talk about it again," Smith says. "Then she cuts my hair off, dresses me like a boy and chubs me up."

So she ate, her body becoming her prison, her isolation from hurt, from letting anyone else touch her again.

By her 20s, doctors were warning her about her high cholesterol and imminent diabetes and the heart disease that had already ravaged her family.

Stabs at Weight Watchers, at counting calories or eating grapefruit only made things worse.

Life outside the kitchen was no better. Her first marriage, bleak and listless, collapsed. The youngest of her three sons was diagnosed with brain cancer.

Then she met Richard.

"He was the first person in my life who loved me unconditionally," she says. "He was my saving grace."

She credits him for giving her the strength to face her past and go on to her future.

And so, on July 2, 2002 - she remembers it exactly - she took all the negative things and feelings of her life, stared them down and walked away.

"I had to force myself to remember," she says. "And I realized that what had happened to me wasn't my fault. I didn't put myself in that prison."

That absolution allowed her to set aside the carbohydrates and the sugars she had always relied on and replace them with leafy green vegetables, proteins and healthy fats.

"I've never looked back," she says.

She shuns everything that turns to sugar in her body. She says she has never craved a carbohydrate again. And because she believes carbs can be absorbed through the skin, she wears gloves when she cooks "normal" foods for her family.

She married Richard in 2003, substituting her slice of wedding cake with yogurt and almonds. She was already 100 pounds lighter.

Breakfast now is an omelet with peppers and green onions; lunch and dinner usually consist of grilled chicken or beef and salad.

Her weakness is portion control.

"I don't want a 4-ounce steak, I want a 16-ounce steak," she says. "Going from a size 28 to size 4 doesn't change everything."

But the changes inside were.

"If you think about it, this was that child, that little blond-haired girl, taken away from me," she says. "And now I've reclaimed her and get to live her again. I got that kid back."

Her hope is to start a low-carb support group in Albuquerque, write a book, help others open the prison gates and reclaim themselves.

And that's as real as it gets.

Gutierrez Krueger's column runs Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach her at 823-3603 or jglenn@abqtrib.com.