- Name: Vanessa
- Location: Santa Rosa, TX
- About Me: In high school at Santa Rosa, Vanessa was sporty and outgoing. Though stocky, she was a good athlete and cheerleader, and her classmates always voted her “best-dressed.”
Now 5’7 and 252 pounds, the wife and mother can no longer find cute clothes at the store and gets easily winded when playing with her 1-year-old son, Liam. Nearly everyone in her family with is overweight and diabetic, many with high cholesterol and blood pressure.
“I see what they go through,” she said. “All the medications they have to take; it tires them out, makes them dizzy. They have to watch what they eat all the time.”
When Vanessa saw a post about H-E-B’s Slim Down Showdown on Facebook, she thought, “Bam! That’s what I am going to do!”
Vanessa is excited to learn about nutrition and start undoing a lifetime of bad habits. When she was growing up, Saturday breakfast at a fast food restaurant and Sundays at the pizza parlor was a family tradition.
“I was very spoiled, I ate whatever I wanted,” she said. “Until this day, it is chips and dip. I won’t even have a meal; I will just eat chips and dip. That is my weakness.”
But Vanessa wants something better for herself and her family.
“I am going to learn a healthy lifestyle because I want to pass it down to Liam,” she said.
