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Krista Vernoff
By Kelly Burgess
Each month, iParenting.com spotlights a mother who inspires and moves us, who embodies the qualities that we all admire in a person, a woman and a mother. Above all, the Mom of the Month is dedicated to her children. Rich or poor, famous or not, she shines as an example of what mothering is all about.
It probably won't be long before a character or two on Grey's Anatomy is trying to lose the baby weight. That's because head writer, Krista Vernoff, often puts events from her own life into her story lines. Currently, she's reveling in finally losing the weight she gained when she was pregnant with daughter Coco, now 2.
True to form, she's written about her weight loss journey in her first book, The Game On! Diet: Kick Your Friend's Butt While Shrinking Your Own (Harper Paperbacks, 2009), which she co-wrote with her good friend, the fitness expert Az Ferguson. She and Ferguson have also established the Game On! Diet Web site (www.thegameondiet.com) where anyone interested in taking on the challenge can find support and competition.
"I was such a blissed-out new mom all I did was sit and look at her and nurse her," says Vernoff. "I didn't want to exercise or think about anything else. I guess since I was nursing I thought the weight would just fall off."
As many other new mothers have found, to their chagrin, that doesn't usually happen, and it didn't in Vernoff's case. She lost only 10 pounds with the birth of Coco, and when she went in for her three-month checkup she was startled to find that she'd only lost an additional pound. She realized that she was officially obese, and she began to worry she'd stay that way.
Vernoff voiced her concerns to a girlfriend who suggested she call Az Ferguson, Body-for-LIFE's million-dollar champion, who had helped her lose weight. Vernoff contacted Ferguson, who suggested a regimen of five small meals per day. He also explained how to balance carbs, proteins and healthy fats and taught her a high-intensity interval training routine. He even suggested that Vernoff take "before" pictures in her underwear. Ferguson got Vernoff totally fired up.
"We were both so gung ho and I was gung ho for about two whole days," says Vernoff. "I just wanted to hang out with my baby, so instead of sticking to Az's plan, I just did a little bit here and there."
After another three months, Vernoff had lost only 4 more pounds and was feeling seriously discouraged. By this time she was back to work and her clothes didn't fit, her knees and back hurt and she was feeling uncomfortable but just couldn't seem to get motivated. Then, Ferguson came to a game night at her house and saw how competitive Vernoff was. It was a light bulb moment for the fitness pro.
A few days later, Vernoff got an e-mail from Ferguson, challenging her to a fitness game. It would be Vernoff and a couple of girlfriends against him, Vernoff's husband, Kevin Maynard, and some other guy friends. Simply put: Players collect points for healthy habits and lose points for unhealthy habits. And it wasn't just food, either, it was all healthy activities, from sleep to meditation to giving up dangerous activities like texting while driving. Vernoff had found her motivation. She lost 15 pounds the first nine weeks, and over the next several months lost 50 pounds.
"This is not a diet, it's a lifestyle," says Vernoff. "You're not just looking at what you put in your body but everything you do throughout your day. It's transformative."
"Before I had Coco I would come to work early and work until 9 at night," says Vernoff. "In those old 13-hour workdays there was a lot of socializing built in. What happened is that I had to learn how to work smarter."
Vernoff also says that she's "incredibly blessed" to have the resources to have help. Her job has also helped her adapt to motherhood. "I thrive on improvisation and deadlines and that's why I'm good at my job," says Vernoff. "What has to be done on those deadlines changes every day and that's how I approach my parenting."
Vernoff now has a basic schedule that starts when she get up at 6 a.m. One thing that's new for her is that she works out every morning – something she says she wasn't doing even when she wrote the book. She also has made a strict commitment to leave work no later than 6:30 p.m. so she can spend three hours with Coco before she goes to bed.
"That was a commitment I made to myself when I came back to work because it was so hard for me to come back," says Vernoff. "I'm lucky because we have an amazing staff at Grey's. We have great writers and they enable me to be more flexible."
After Coco is in bed, Vernoff works, if necessary, until it's time for her own bedtime, which, thanks to The Game! is a strict 11 p.m. Seven hours of sleep is a cornerstone of the lifestyle changes that the Game! On Diet promotes. "Moms have so much to do and they prioritize everything over their sleep," says Vernoff. "It's amazing for a mom to be given permission and inspiration to put everything away and go to bed. I had been feeling so bad, and when [Ferguson] attached points to sleep it transformed my life."
Vernoff had been bugging Ferguson to write a book introducing the rest of the world to his diet game, but he felt he couldn't do it by himself. Then came the writer's strike, and Vernoff started off on another writing project.
"I actually started to write a book about how to become a screenwriter and was writing it as a funny memoir," says Vernoff. "[Ferguson] read some of it and suggested I write the health and fitness book in that style. I understood then how to write it because I have a lifelong history of food issues and diet issues. I'm every woman with broadly comic issues."
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