To read Smith College's nod to yours truly, click here.
BusinessWest's article heads the pack as my mother's personal favorite (October 15, 2007).
The Daily Hampshire Gazette's feature by staff writer Suzanne Wilson is below, followed immediately by Pat Cahill's coverage in The Republican. Both articles ran in August 2007.
"Leading the Weigh: Personal trainer Kelly Coffey aims to help women who, like her, have struggled to lose extra pounds."
Daily Hampshire Gazette, August 14, 3007, Suzanne Wilson, Staff Writer
Kelly Coffey, right, a personal trainer, helps Liz Washer as she performs triceps push downs at Universal Health and Fitness. After losing a substantial amount of weight and getting fit, Coffey has now set her sights on helping women who have had a hard time finding the motivation to drop pounds and exercise regularly.
KELLY Coffey is a personal trainer and looks the part. In stylish, sleek activewear, blondish hair around her shoulders, she's trim, fit and muscular. In a gym, she seems entirely at home surrounded by sweaty gym rats in a landscape of treadmills, stationary bikes, elliptical machines and weight lifting equipment.
But the image is deceptive. Coffey, a 27-year old Smith College graduate who lives in Northampton, used to weigh 300 pounds and never saw the inside of a gym until three years ago.
She knows what it's like to grow up as a fat kid, the one others made fun of.
She knows what it's like to suffer through 'doomed attempts,' as she calls them, to diet and exercise. She once lost 85 pounds, only to pack 90 back on. On the tennis court, 'it was clear I didn't belong,' she says. At the pool? 'It was a total shamefest.'
In 2003, Coffey underwent gastric-bypass surgery, a procedure in which surgeons section off a small pouch from the stomach; a section of intestine is attached to the pouch, which can only hold a small amount at a time, so that food bypasses the lower stomach. Though there have been setbacks along the way, the surgery put Coffey on a path to a new career as a personal trainer who is especially interested in working with women who are dealing with the struggles she knows so well.
Liz Washer, one of Coffey's clients, sums it up this way: 'What fat girl wants to come to a gym? Kelly gets it. 'Fat all my life'
Washer, 30, is a marketing writer and publicist who says she has struggled with compulsive eating for years.
'I've been fat all my life, I've hated my body, and I've spent a lot of money on diets,' she says.
That began to change four years ago when Washer began doing some research that convinced her that her secretive, often furtive eating was a true disorder; her partner, she says, was also becoming increasingly concerned about her health.
That summer, Washer joined a support group for people with eating disorders and started changing her eating habits and patterns. Over time, she lost nearly 100 pounds.
Though she managed to keep much of it off, Washer said she frequently fell prey to 'yo-yo' dieting, up 20 pounds, down, then up again, and always felt as though she were engaged in a wearying, never-ending struggle. Exercise was an occasional thing at best.
Last winter, in another sporadic effort to lose weight, she joined Universal Health and Fitness in Northampton but used only the treadmills.
'There was a whole gym I wasn't taking advantage of,' she recalls. 'But I didn't have the confidence to take a class or try out the weight machines.'
Instant interest
So the moment was right, when Washer met Coffey through a mutual friend early last spring. Coffey mentioned that she was going to start working as a personal trainer, and Washer was instantly interested.
The two met for an intake session in April, and then began weekly sessions at Universal, during which Coffey, who charges $70 an hour, introduced Washer to the world of strength training.
'She de-mystified everything for me,' says Washer. Coffey taught her how to do the exercises and how to use and adjust the machines, while supervising her form and gradually increasing the amount of weight or number of repetitions.
Walker has progressed from occasional walks on a treadmill to three workouts a week, one with Coffey, followed by two on her own. She usually does about 45 minutes of strength training, followed by a cardio workout.
Her demeanor has changed, too. When Washer first went to the gym, Coffey says she was shy and clearly self-conscious. 'Now she walks around like she owns the place.'
That may also reflect something else Washer says she learned: Nobody at the gym really cared what she looked like.
'I was nervous at first, but I realized that people are mostly focused on themselves,' she said with a laugh. 'They're locking eyes with their own reflections in the mirror.'
Asked to describe her current regimen with weights, Washer answers like a seasoned pro in the fluent lingo of lat pulldowns, kickbacks, bench presses, curls and overhead presses, leg extensions, the sliding squat machine, squats with free weights, and tricep pulldowns. Since she started working with Coffey this spring, she says she's lost about 15 pounds and has muscle definition where none existed before.
'For me, it's not about being thin in the Hollywood sense,' she says. 'I want to be fit for my body.'
Washer knows there are many good trainers around and she might well have had a good experience with any one of them. 'But it's just so helpful to work out with someone who understands what it was like to be significantly overweight,' she said.
In control
And Coffey does.
Food was a big part of her life from the start, she says. Both her parents were heavy, and by age 5, she was already sitting in on Weight Watchers meetings her mother attended in New York, where the family lived.
In school, she says she became the prankster, the joker - 'whatever the moment called for' - to try to win the approval of classmates who might otherwise exclude her. As she got older, she tried to accept herself as she was, and sometimes she even succeeded. But more often than not, she says, 'I knew it wasn't true.'
When Coffey was 22, her mother, then nearing 400 pounds, underwent gastric-bypass surgery. As she recovered, Coffey saw her becoming more active and engaged with the world - taking the dog for a walk, going to a party she might have avoided in the past.
'I saw her come alive and that opened my eyes,' she says.
Coffey underwent gastric-bypass herself in March 2003; she was 23 years old, weighed about 290 pounds, and was already close to having high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
A dietician who counseled her at the time of her surgery tried to make her understand that the surgery alone would not be enough, Coffey recalls. She'd have to learn to eat healthy foods, she remembers being told, and the dietician added a warning: 'She said, listen to me, how well you do after this will depend on how willing you are to get out of bed and start exercising.'
On her first day out of the hospital, three days post-surgery, Coffey donned her sneakers and took a short, slow walk around the block. 'I felt like I was in control. I felt incredibly proud of myself.' She began shedding weight, lots of weight - eventually nearly 170 pounds in six months.
But that initial rush of pride and happiness didn't last. The truth was, she wasn't feeling great, either physically or emotionally. Physically, 'I was loose skin and bones,' she said, 'and I felt sick, old and weak.' She was walking a little, but not much. And emotionally, she says, she realized the surgery hadn't changed her addiction to food. She still craved it, started eating more, and the weight started coming back on.
'I realized that something drastic had to change,' she said.
What changed was that in January 2004 she joined a gym, Curves in Haydenville.
'I felt safe there,' she says of the women's-only chain of gyms. The more she exercised, the better she felt and looked. 'I could see a difference,' she said. Several months later, with her confidence boosted, she decided to do more strength training and began working with a trainer at Universal in Northampton. 'I started very, very slowly,' she recalls.
Gradually, over time, Coffey grew stronger and healthier. Then one day at the gym, she caught sight of a trainer working with a newcomer, a woman who seemed tentative and unsure of herself. 'I still identified with the woman, even though I looked like the trainer,' she says. It struck her then that she wanted to help others.
In April of this year, she completed a program to become certified as a personal trainer by the American College of Sports Medicine. Coffey says she is currently working with five clients, all women, whose ages range from 30 to the mid-50s. In addition to the gym visits, Coffey offers encouragement and 'as much or as little support as they want,' she says.
The long haul
Coffey knows that getting fit can be a long, hard road. On some days, when she doesn't feel like hitting the gym, she still has to push herself. 'I'm very familiar with that voice,' she says candidly, when asked if she ever has those do-I-have-to moments.
When they hit, she reminds herself that, even on a bad day, she'll never regret exercising. Staying sedentary and snacking on junk food, on the other hand, 'won't make me feel better.'
Liz Washer says that she, too, knows that her challenge will be to maintain the momentum she has now. 'We'll see,' she said. 'It's early.'
For now, though, she's focused on the positive. 'Kelly's been a great cheerleader for me - and she's sincere. Even when I've been frustrated, I've gone to the gym,' she says. 'I have a lot more energy and I just feel better in my skin. I know that I'm doing something good for myself.'
The Republican, August 15, 2007, Pat Cahill, Staff Writer
Two women, two approaches to weight loss:
Michelle J. Cayo, 31, of Granby, is a wife, mother and commercial credit officer at a bank. She joined Weight Watchers in 2001 and has since lost 144 pounds, achieving her "lifetime" weight in June 2003.
Kelly Coffey, 27, of Northampton, is a Smith College graduate, a writer and personal trainer. She lost 160 pounds after having gastric bypass surgery in March 2003.
Four years later, both women are still in top shape.
Both stress that losing weight is about lifestyle change. There is no magic bullet. That goes for gastric bypass surgery, too, says Coffey.
The procedure involves stapling (or, in the case of gastric banding, tightening a plastic band) near the top of the stomach to reduce it to a small pouch one or two ounces in size, according to Dr. John R. Romanelli of the Department of Surgery at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. (He's not Coffey's doctor.)
Because the stomach is smaller, a diner feels full sooner and eats less.
But beware of going back to old habits. "These operations do not cause weight loss," says Romanelli. "They are merely tools to make dieting and exercise more effective."
If people go back to overeating, says Coffey, the pouch accommodates by stretching.
In fact, that's why Cayo decided against a gastric bypass. If she had to restrict her diet anyway - why not do it without the surgery?
And losing weight was something she decided she had to do, even though she had been heavy since childhood.
Her wake-up call came one day as she carried her baby, Nicholas, upstairs to bed.
"I was 25 years old and I couldn't even make it to the second floor without gasping for breath, and my heart pounding," says Cayo.
For her son's sake, she knew she had to get healthy. But where to start? "I was almost in despair," she says.
Fortunately, she had the best possible ally in her struggle: her mom.
"My mother, who is my best friend, walked through the door of Weight Watchers with me and gave me the strength to do it," says Cayo.
What followed was not a diet, she says, but a change in lifestyle.
"Years ago, when I was overweight, I thought, 'I don't eat that much more than my friends,'" she says. "But, looking back, I definitely ate the wrong foods - and too much of them."
Cayo, who declined to say how much she weighs now, explains that the Weight Watchers program monitors intake by assigning points to foods. "You can eat any food you want," she says, "but healthier foods get lower points than high-calorie foods. One piece of cake is the equivalent of three or four salads."
Cayo used to hate eating fruit. But once she gave up the processed sugar in candy bars, cherries and watermelons became deliciously sweet.
She also became more active. "I'm at a point where I exercise five to six times a week," she says. "I try to be out and about. If I sit in front of the TV, I want to eat. So I ride my bike with my son or go swimming."
If she has to take the stairs instead of the elevator - fine!
Cayo used to be shy. An outgrowth of her new confidence: Her master's degree from Bay Path College in Longmeadow.
In Northampton, Coffey calls her personal training business Strong Coffey.
With her taut, tanned skin, sparkling blue eyes and blond hair pulled straight back, she looks like a California surfer.
But Coffey comes from a "hard-working, blue-collar family" in the Queens borough of New York City. She made high grades at the community college she attended and was able to transfer to Smith.
She was self-conscious about her weight. She had been "very, very" overweight since age 4. At her peak she weighed 307 pounds.
Coffey tried to accept herself as she was. She knew that yo-yo dieting "took a toll on your heart." She had watched her mother gain and lose 100 pounds - five times.
Then her mother had gastric bypass surgery. After lots of research, Coffey decided to have it done, too.
The laparoscopic procedure took five and a half hours. Five small incisions were made and tubes inserted. Through another opening, a tiny camera guided the surgical team.
"I spent three days in the hospital, drugged the whole time. They start making you walk around the day after the surgery," says Coffey.
"Immobility after surgery puts people at risk for developing blood clots," explains Romanelli.
Coffey knew she had to exercise, but "I didn't become a gym rat instantly!"
She had always avoided sports. She hated getting sweaty. But the day after she left the hospital, Coffey walked a quarter of a mile.
She became a regular at Curves. "I did low-level cardio, woke up my muscles with resistance training," she says.
She moved on to Universal Health and Fitness in Northampton and the Smith College gym. "Six weeks after I started out, I was noticing muscles," she says.
A year ago, Coffey also noticed an overweight woman working with a trainer. She reflected that the trainer, who had probably been thin all her life, had no way of knowing what the larger woman had been through.
"It kind of hit me like a huge wave," says Coffey, "how much it would have meant to me to be guided by someone who had made those changes herself."
The emotions. The addiction to food. The compulsion, once food was withdrawn, to "feed the beast" - with cigarettes, with shopping, with other unhealthy outlets. The way back to health.
Coffey earned her certification from the American College of Sports Medicine. Clients have been calling her ever since.
