Thursday, December 15, 2011

The best gift I ever gave


I told you about the best gift I ever received in my last post. But not only was Ped's cooking the best gift I ever got, it was the gift that inspired me to give Amanda, one of our employees, the best gift I ever gave anyone.

Last winter, Amanda told me that she wanted to lose weight, just like I had done. So I signed her up with a fitness expert who counseled her about nutrition and helped her to do at least three cardio-intensive workouts a week. Please note that I said nutritional advice — not a diet! Trainers will tell you that the weight you lose while dieting is the weight that you will put right back on. What I learned and what Amanda found out was that the secret to weight loss is exercise, and the secret to keeping extra weight off is to eat the right kinds of food.

Amanda worked out faithfully and she lost sixty pounds in just six months! Because she changed the way she ate, the weight stayed off. Her mom told me that she went from wearing extra-large sizes to extra-small!

Ped's gift to me helped me to lose weight, and I passed it on to Amanda who has been coaching her friends on how to eat right. But best of all, Amanda's mom was working next to Ped when he cooked many of my special meals, and she learned from him how to cook healthy, nutritious meals.