May 11th, 2020Life changed with simple diet and exercise

DAYLESFORD’S “Big” Dale Callahan is big no more. The 56-year-old has lost a massive 102kg in just 40 weeks.

Dale had a starting weight of 218kg and is now down to 116kg, off his Optifast diet and back on normal food and a maintenance program.

The catalyst for Dale, who had always carried a bit of extra weight, was the need for a hip replacement with his doctor telling him he first needed to lose weight and suggesting gastric sleeve surgery to reduce the size of his stomach.

Dale headed to Ballarat but was told by the specialist that while he was a good candidate, he needed to lose 20kg before he could even have that done.

“When I heard that, it was probably the trigger in my brain, the crossroads, that I was too heavy to be operated on. I went back and spoke to my doctor, Gerard Ingham, who had told me many times I could lose a bit of weight.

“I said I was not overly keen on them cutting me open and all that, and also I didn’t want to not be able to eat a meal with my family or go to a restaurant and have to order an entrée and take half of it home.

“That’s not me. I just loved my food, as most people do, and I thought if I can’t sit down with my family and have a meal, what’s the point of anything? So I said, let’s try a diet.”

Dale said Dr Ingham suggested Optifast shakes and soup meal replacements, providing all the nutrients, calcium, proteins and carbs, for breakfast and lunch, along with a dinner meal focused on vegetables and a small amount of protein.

It was a Friday and Dr Ingham asked Dale when he was going to start. Dale said the following Monday, May 25, which resulted in a wry look from his doctor.

“I told him I had to buy the shakes but I also had friends coming around on Sunday for what I called my last supper – roast pork and crackling. Then on Monday I went cold turkey. I made sure I stuck to the regime and never cheated once.”

He also started to walk, and the more he walked, the more weight he lost.

A school crossing supervisor, Dale said he spent the two hours at work, pacing. “People probably thought I was crazy but I walked the entire hour in the morning and at night and that really got the ball rolling. As I lost 20kg I pushed myself further and then suddenly it was 40kg and so on.”

Dale said the weight loss program was initially for just 12 weeks but he kept going for 36 weeks, with health and blood checks along the way. He also saw a dietitian at the Community Health Centre, Olivia Gourley.

“Olivia was absolutely amazing. I have been to dietitians over the years but she just said we should do a program that suited me and then just gave me suggestions on changing the menu. I never felt judged.”

Dale said he also started growing his own vegies so he would always have variety in the kitchen. Amazingly, as the cook in the family, along with his own vegetable- laden meals, he also made sure his twin sons, daughters and partner had their meals ready each night.

And after just 12 weeks he stopped telling people he was on a diet, changing, as he got his own head around what he was doing, to saying he was on a lifestyle change.

Dale said while he hoped to lose the three-figure mark, he never had a goal because he thought that would be setting himself up for a fail.

But as he lost weight, he hit little targets, firstly the weights of his children, Xanthe, 12, twins Eamonn and Liam, 14, and Micayla, 20, then his partner, Charlene, and then just kept on going, all the way to his 100kg mark. He is now eating 2000 calories a day, “a smorgasboard”, up from a daily 800 to 900 calories.

“The other thing is for the past 36 years I have been my brother’s bigger brother in weight, but now I am lighter than him. Little things have spurred me on.”

He has also encountered people in the local supermarket who can’t believe the weight loss, and have even worried he was ill, or the mother at the school crossing who asked after the six-week break over Christmas “where is the other man?”.

There’s also the new set of shirts, now tucked into the pants, finished with a belt. The old Dale wore baggy jumpers to hide his stomach from the world.

Then there’s last year’s Steptember, a cerebral palsy fundraiser. Hepburn Shire Council had asked employees to get involved with teams to reach the 10,000 steps a day goal.

Dale created his own team of school crossing supervisors and despite his hip holding him back a little, they won. Dale worked towards it with 3000 steps in August, 10,000 in September and now and again hitting 30,000 steps in a day.

“I feel it with the hip at night-time but sometimes you have to push through that pain to achieve what you want to get to. I said, imagine how many steps I would be able to do if I had two hips.”

Dale is on the list for surgery at Bacchus Marsh as soon as the hospital there is doing elective surgery again.

“I am now considered low risk. This year has changed my life – and if I can do it…”

Words: Kyle Barnes | Image: Contributed