HOW SHE DID IT
JOANNE THIVIERGE, 24 LOST 116 POUNDS OCCUPATION: Psychometrist
PREVIOUS
NEW
WEIGHT
255
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DRESS SIZE
18 to 20
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Self-Help Story A medical emergency prompted one woman to make a major life change. BY KATE DALEY
WHERE SHE STARTED Joanne Thivierge was a self-described food addict. As a child, she was always “the chubby one,” and by the time she finished university, she had hit 255 pounds. “I would eat anything,” she says. “I was eating two kinds of fast food in one sitting.” But being overweight wasn’t enough to push Joanne to change; it took a major health scare. Five days after her 19th birthday, Joanne lost the vision in her left eye. “When I went to the hospital, I found out that I’d had a stroke,” she says. Then, as the doctors performed a magnetic resonance imaging test, she had a second stroke. A third occurred while she was still in the hospital. After running more tests, the doctors learned that Joanne’s blood pressure was extremely high due to her sodium intake, and plaque had formed in her veins from years of poor food choices, restricting her blood flow. “My doctor told me that if I didn’t lose weight, I would die,” she says. HOW SHE DID IT After spending a month in the hospital, Joanne began her slow recovery. Though she had lost much of her vision from the strokes, her eyesight eventually returned to normal.
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CANADIANLIVING.COM | JANUARY 2015
PHOTOGRAPHY: BERNIE AHO (PORTRAITS); JEFF COULSON (FOOD). MAKEUP, DANA LAJEUNESSE
and therapist in Sudbury, Ont. TIME PERIOD: 2 years HEIGHT: 5'4"
