Kim Bensen: For the Love of Food

Kim Bensen gives seven tips to help from overeating during the holidays.

(1) Serve your meal in courses, starting with salad or soup. This gives you the opportunity to take the hunger edge off.

(2) Don’t wear stretch pants. Wearing pants that are snug is a good indicator of overeating.

(3) Don’t leave food on the table. Have guests pass around food and serve themselves. Then remove the food from the table. If seconds are necessary, pass the food around again.

(4) When you’re done eating, put your napkin on your plate and push it away. This is a good reminder to yourself that you are done.

(5) Don’t forget exercise. The Bensens have a tradition of playing basketball. Incorporate exercise into the day.

(6) Be selective with calories. Fill up your plate with ½ vegetables, ¼ protein and ¼ carbohydrates. Remember that there is pie at the end of the meal so portion out those calories.

(7) Look up from the table. Remember that holidays are about family and friends, not food.

Kim always loved food. In high school, she gained and lost the same 15 pounds in a yo-yo cycle that followed her into adulthood. n 1984, she finally reached her goal weight for her wedding but started gaining again on the honeymoon. Kim tried everything. With each trial and failure, Kim fluctuated in the 200 pound range for the first 10 years of her marriage and in the 300’s for the second. Her husband, Mark, never complained.

“He prayed for me,” says Kim, “and helped me when I cried about how miserable I felt, but he knew he couldn’t lose the weight for me.”

Eventually, Kim grew so large that she could not fit in many chairs.

“I couldn’t buckle up in a car or in an airplane,” she says. “I even outgrew most plus size clothing stores.”

She says she had no lap for her children to sit on.

“If I continued,” says Kim, “my children would have no mother at all. I was eating myself to death.”

One day, Kim heard her pastor preach a sermon on gluttony and read this verse, “And the Israelites craved meat more than God.”

Kim says, “I remember thinking, ‘How can that be? Who could love food more than God?” Then I realized…that was me.”

Her time, focus and enjoyment all centered on food, not on God.

“I knew that food had become an idol to me, but in my heart I also knew I wasn’t willing to let go of it.”

In hopeless desperation, Kim gave up trying but God continued to work on her heart. On her 40th birthday, Kim weighed nearly 350 pounds. She was having trouble walking. It hurt to stand up, sit or lie down.

“I just plain hurt, inside and out,” says Kim.

Her cholesterol was astromonically high. On October 1, 2001, Kim cried out to God in a desperate, broken prayer which would change her heart and her life. Three days later, she joined Weight Watchers and weighed in at 347 pounds. Slowly day by day, Kim stuck with the program. By the new year, she lost 35 pounds.

There were days when she was discouraged and impatient but Kim continued to plug away. Finally after several months, Kim managed to get under 300 pounds. That spring, people began noticing her weight loss. At her one year anniversary, Kim weighed 224 pounds and was a size 20. Her diet slowly became her lifestyle. Next she hit 173 pounds. Kim weighed as much as she lost!

Finally on October 2, her two year anniversary, Kim reached her goal weight. She has lost a total of 210 pounds, lowered her cholesterol 112 points, lost one-and-a-half inches in each wrist, gone down 14 sizes, 4 ring sizes, one-and-a-half shoe sizes (plus went from wide to normal width). Her knees, back and feet don’t hurt anymore. Every day she does 20 push ups and 200 crunches.

This fall, Kim began working as Better TV’s Diet Editor, a new national Lifetime morning show. Recently she launched Kim’s Light Bagels, a 100 calorie, low-fat, high fiber bagel in six flavors: plain, wheat, cinnamon, blueberry onion and everything. Kim will demo her pumpkin roll, pumpkin cheesecake and autumn soup.