Reporter’s Note: It was through Lucy Davis of the Valdosta Weight Watchers center that I met Lynn Renfroe. I knew she was someone I had to meet. In a nation where diet pills and fad diets reign — and obesity rates continue to climb — I knew her story might inspire other women as well as men to make some simple lifestyle changes. By paying attention to every bite, lick, and taste (also known as the BLTs of Weight Watchers) and making time to do a little walking most days of the week, she lost more than 140 pounds. That’s a whole adult person. She hopes to lose at least another 12 pounds and wear her skinny jeans, which for her are a size 8. Best of all, she won’t have to give up chocolate to do it!

Stop dieting.

Start living.

That is exactly what Lynn Renfroe of Quitman did when she joined Weight Watchers with good friend Lucy Davis on Sept. 19, 2005. The 45-year-old said that she tipped the scales at 314.4 pounds.

At her weekly Weight Watchers meeting on April 22, Renfroe weighed 173 pounds — give or take a few ounces.

“Looking back, I was heavy my whole life ... as a kid, as a teenager, as an adult,” she shared. “I wore a size 14 in middle school, and while I had friends, I always got picked on in school by other students. Even within my own family — I have three sisters — I was always the chubby one.”

In an effort to lose the weight, Renfroe noted that she tried every diet pill, every diet program, every diet book on the market. And although she shed a few pounds with them, none succeeded in helping her achieve her ultimate weight loss goal.

“I would lose 20 pounds and then gain it all back plus some,” she said. “I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. I did not eat like a heavy person. I did not pile on the food or supersize everything.”

Renfroe’s biggest weakness has forever been, and will likely forever be, her fondness for sweets. (She likes the fact that she can still indulge in such on a controlled basis on Weight Watchers.)

“I am a very big sweets person,” she said. “I love chocolate. I still eat it when I want. I am just more aware of it when I do.”

An underactive thyroid