When Nancy Nygren had a meeting on the fourth floor, she opted for the stairs.
By the time she reached the top, she couldn’t breathe. It took most of the meeting for her to catch her breath.
The 5-foot-5-inch woman weighed well over 200 pounds at 47. With her 50th birthday only a few years away, Nygren didn’t want to hit the milestone as obese. So she made changes to her eating habits and got off the couch.
“I thought, ‘This is a problem. Take care of this,’ ” Nygren said.
Now, Nygren weighs 160 pounds.
She had stopped weighing herself once the scale flashed 225, so Nygren knows she lost at least 65 pounds but estimates the true number is closer to 80. The Omaha woman has kept the weight off for a decade.
While many people may lose significant amounts of weight, sometimes through trendy diets, they aren’t all able to maintain it, said Jennifer Yee, instructor of Nygren’s boot camp class. Nygren made exercise, nutrition and fitness key parts of her life.
“She’s the perfect example of somebody who has lost a significant amount of weight and has done it the right way,” said Yee, who is also an instructor in Creighton University’s exercise science program.
Nygren, now 57, said she was never athletic, but after she had children, her lifestyle became more sedentary.
Meals consisted of fast food at least five times a week and soda every day. She loved to snack on salty foods, especially chips.
Nygren started by writing down everything she ate in a day.
“I was shocked by the sheer volume,” Nygren said. “Clearly no one needed to eat that much.”
She stopped eating out. Chips and soda no longer had a home in her pantry. Nygren started keeping tabs on her eating habits and how many calories were in the foods she ate.
She took up walking. Nygren, along with a few co-workers, would walk from their building on the Creighton University campus to the CenturyLink Center and back over the lunch hour. At home, she would walk along the nearby Papio Trail.
“I walked off the first 40 pounds,” she said. “I wasn’t doing anything super exciting. … I did all the stuff we know about but just don’t follow.”
Nygren’s walking group also participated in a boot camp class offered by Creighton’s exercise science department. She’s been participating in the class three times a week for 10 years now.
At first, it was intimidating. Nygren hadn’t done a pushup since high school. But the participants — women of all ages and fitness levels — were welcoming.
In a recent class over the lunch hour, Nygren and about a dozen others hopped from station to station performing different exercises. On a basketball court in the fitness center, Nygren started by riding a stationary bike. She moved on to lift weights, complete pushups and planks, swing kettlebells and toss around a weighted ball.
Nygren tries to eat whole foods, eating fruits, vegetables and whole grains throughout the day. No foods are off limits; that mindset would make her want them more. If she wants pizza, she has a piece or two and not the whole pie.
Kelvin Nygren said he was excited when his wife decided to craft a healthier lifestyle.
“She’s a very private person. She doesn’t like to make a big deal out of herself and her accomplishments, but I think she probably has been an inspiration to people,” he said. “It’s something I think anybody can do. You just have to really change your mindset and that was the big deal for her.”
Occasionally Nancy Nygren plateaued and stopped shedding pounds. Last year, a fall during boot camp broke her elbow, hip and pelvis. She was sidelined for eight weeks before returning to class. Nygren credits her fitness level for her speedy recovery.
“I wanted to get back and do things I was used to doing,” Nygren said. “I wanted to keep that up.”
Nygren said she’s determined to keep the weight off. She does that in part by setting goals. She set out to walk 2,017 miles in 2017. Her injury was a setback, but she finished her last 3 miles on Dec. 31.
“I realized I really needed to change a few things in my life,” Nygren said. “I changed the focus of my life. I want to be fit. I want to be healthy.”
kelsey.stewart@owh.com, 402-444-3100, twitter.com/kels2
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