We, separately, began our 12-session program with Fran in November 2000 after seeing how a friend had not only lost weight through Fran's program, but also had kept it off for more than a year.

While we didn't feel like we were particularly fat, we thought we could look better.

In addition, Nick was hoping that losing weight might help his snoring problem and lack of energy. A doctor had suggested using a rather loud breathing machine or surgery as a solution, which seemed rather extreme. Nick decided to try to lose weight to see if that would have an impact before exploring other options.

When he started going to Fran, he weighed 253 pounds, wore 38-inch pants (which were becoming entirely too tight), size 50 sport/suit coats, XXL shirts and jackets.

For the first three weeks of Nick's sessions, Kirsten was on a short-term work assignment in East Texas. The demanding job made exercise impossible and finding healthy food difficult. She started Fran's program upon her return to Austin, after hearing her husband enthusiastically talk about Fran's program and his initial weight loss.

When she began to see Fran, Kirsten weighed 150 pounds and was inching toward a size 12. She had chalked her weight gain up to genetics. She thought she knew how to eat well. She counted fat grams and exercised religiously, feeling guilty if she missed an evening at the gym. But she would come back from the gym and eat three reduced fat cookies, feeling good that she wasn't eating many fat grams. What she didn't realize - and what she learned from Fran - was the importance of counting calories, not fat grams. Those three cookies were 150 calories!

As Kirsten started her sessions with Fran and began keeping food records, she realized how easy it had been to add 150 calories here and 150 calories there just by grabbing a cookie or a piece of candy. Eventually, it all added up and led to her 15-pound weight gain over three years.

Our sessions with Fran began to pay off immediately.

Twelve weeks after starting Fran's program, Nick dropped 30 pounds and a couple of inches off his waist, gained some much-needed energy, and dramatically reduced his snoring (much to Kirsten's delight). And all of this happened over the Christmas holidays! He lost an additional 10 pounds over the next four months despite starting a new job and taking on a more demanding schedule.

By April 2001 - within five months - Kirsten had lost 20 pounds (15 was the original goal) and was wearing a size 6. She lost an additional 5 pounds over the summer - unintentionally - after joining a bicycling group. She has maintained a weight of between 125 and 128 pounds. Her new problem is finding something that fits in her closet because many of her old clothes are now too baggy, rather than too tight - a problem she has never had before! In May 2002, her annual cholesterol test was in the normal range for the first time ever.

We have been surprised how easy it has been to lose the weight and to keep it off by making simple adjustments to our eating, such as using vinegar and lemon on our salad instead of salad dressings, eliminating many fried foods (except for French fries) or eating a grilled chicken sandwich instead of a cheeseburger. We are enjoying discovering new low calorie food items, including snacks such as Healthy Choice frozen fudge bars, Guiltless Gourmet baked chips and Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches.

Our lifestyle changes have never seemed like a "diet"; no suffering has been involved. We still eat our favorite pizza on a regular basis; in fact, there is nothing we do not eat. We just do it in moderation. If we have a particularly high-calorie day, we don't beat ourselves up about it and feel guilty - we try and make compensations the rest of the week.

While both of us try to exercise, most of our weight loss and continued maintenance have been through our diet. We still keep food records and write down our food intake and exercise data every day.

Our family and friends are impressed with results. When people ask us how we have been successful, we enthusiastically describe what we have learned from Fran and how surprisingly easy it has been to lose weight.

But most of the time, they don't really want to hear about calorie counting and record keeping. They think it's too hard, too much trouble, will never work for them. Like most Americans, they want quick weight loss without any effort, without making any real changes to their eating or exercise habits. But obviously, what they are doing isn't working.

We used to be like that too. Now, 65 pounds lighter, we know different.

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