Teen loses more than 100 pounds

BY NANCY COLEMAN

Gosh, it’s kind of embarrassing. Pam Gardner sits in the bleachers these days, watching basketball. Her son, Morgan, jumps, shoots, runs up and down the court. He’s doing great, but … it’s just … His shorts! They’re too loose, she thinks. Gosh – even tied up! But it’s a pleasant problem. Morgan Gardner used to wear big, big clothes. Now, they just don’t fit.

He has to find smaller ones. In less than a year, the Northeast Bradford student lost 105 pounds. Starting at 317, he dropped and dropped, until he reached 212. He’s shed one-third of himself. How? He decided to do it. He started a diet. He stuck to it. Period.

“I feel 100 percent now!” Morgan, 16, declares. He’s healthy and happy. It wasn’t always that way. A big boy to start, Morgan weighed about 150 at age 10. Then his dad, Joe, died tragically. Morgan got depressed.

"Eating made you feel happy,” Pam says to her son, a quiet young man with neat brown hair and light eyes. Morgan also sat a lot, working on the computer or watching TV. He did play basketball, but got no other exercise. So he ate. And gained. More, and more.

The years passed. His physician, Dr. Joseph Biancarelli, worried. He warned him about diabetes and high blood pressure. “It’s not that he was putting the fear of God in him,” Pam says. It was just true. Morgan felt tired, sluggish. The school bus would let him off at the bottom of Towner Hill, in Rome, and he’d walk up to his house. He’d stop three times to rest. “And my blood pressure was pretty high, too,” he admits.

One day, an adult hurled a cruel insult at him, cruel words about his weight. Morgan said nothing. But Pam knew something was wrong. She can still see the look on his face. “I will never forget that as long as I live.” It was the last straw. “I decided to do something about it,” Morgan states. He saw the doctor. “We can give you medicine,” Biancarelli said, but it would be best to do it yourself. “You can do it on your own,” Pam remembers the doctor saying.

“You can put it on; you can take it off.” Morgan would do it himself. His uncle Doug McLinko was on the popular Atkins Diet. “He inspired me,” Morgan says. “Morgan read the book!” Pam says. Her son studied Atkins. He would lose weight, he believed. Then, on his 16th birthday, the next summer, he would eat cake and ice cream and pizza! He began in August 2003.

In the Atkins Diet, you cut carbohydrates. Way down. Then you gradually add some back in. You can eat meat and some vegetables, but should shun things like breads, pasta, flour and sugar products, the Gardners explain. Some vegetables like carrots have carbs, so you limit them. Morgan started at the first Atkins level, which allowed only 20 grams of carbs a day.

On a typical morning, he might eat scrambled eggs with cheese and sausage. No milk. He’d eat the school lunch, putting Ranch dressing—blessed by Atkins—on the salad. He’d bring his own Propel fitness water. “I had one every single day of the year,” Morgan remembers. And every day he had to trudge to the assistant principal’s office to get it OK’d. But he did it. At night, he ate meat—maybe steak, or chicken, or hamburger or pork chops. With it, he might have a salad—"You used a lot of Ranch dressing,” Pam notes—and a veggie like green or wax beans or greens. An avid Penn State fan, Morgan and his grandfather saw all the home games. During the trip, they’d stop at a Sheetz store and order hoagies – Morgan just wouldn’t eat the bun. After away basketball games the team often stopped at a fast-food place.

Morgan would order a salad or a triple burger—Hold the ketchup and the bun, please. (Ketchup contains sugar, they explain.) At Subway, he’d order an “Atkins Wrap,” with a tortilla shell-like, non-bread outside, and filling of salad, onions, chicken and so on. And “a little Ranch.” Staying at a friend’s house? Morgan took his own food: cheese, meat and water. Soda? No! Morgan drank plain or fruit water. French fries? No! Cake? Double no!

Once at a party, they were serving cake in the kitchen. Morgan went into the living room. “I couldn’t have it,” he states. So he walked away. Once, he gained a pound or two—"because I had too much gum.” So he found a brand with less than a gram of carbs. He chewed one stick a day. Morgan did snack on special strawberry Atkins ice cream or Atkins peanut butter bars. “But he was very good about watching what his count was,” Pam says.

He tracked his carbs like a banker counting pennies. Every day. Say he was at 17 grams. How about some of that cool, sweet Atkins ice cream? Only 4 grams. That would make only 21 grams that day. “He would not … would not do it!” Pam says. Morgan missed only one food, he insists—apple pie. “That and coffee!” He took a vitamin supplement and weighed himself daily. Fifteen pounds dropped off quickly. Then it slowed down. “You got disgusted!”

Pam reminds Morgan. “It takes time,” he admits now. “It takes time.” In the meantime, he exercised more. He sweat his way through bench presses, crunches, push-ups, sit-ups. Every day. He sometimes ran on a treadmill. In the summer, he played basketball at Rome Park or the Third Ward Playground in Towanda. He moved through the Atkins levels, which let him eat a little more carbs. Morgan notes you’re also supposed to take breaks from the diet, and get eight hours of sleep a night. “Is that what it says in the book?” Pam asks. “Yes,” he states. Finally, it was July 2004.

The bathroom scales announced the good news: 212. After 11 months of salads, push-ups, meat—and Ranch dressing—he’d done it. He’d lost 105 pounds. “I will never be fat again!” he declared. – Today, Morgan’s off the Atkins reduction phase and maintaining his weight. He eats the right amount of carbs so he won’t gain or lose. Yes, he can have that plate of spaghetti now and then. He’s 6 feet, 2 inches. The teen has a healthy, solid look and strong arms. He’s dropped from a 42 or 44 in pants to 36, almost 34, and XXX-large shirts to X-large or large. Pam’s proud. His doctor’s impressed. Morgan’s grandfather surprised him with $100 as a reward. “Where’s the other half of you?” teachers kid. And: How’d you do it? “We should all be inspired,” Pam reports his principal, Matt Gordon, said of his feat.

Morgan used to be sluggish. “And now he’s raring to go!” his mom says. “If I want to go run, I’ll run,” he says. He can keep up. A friend asked if he wanted to run 5 miles. So he did. “I did a 7-mile run, too.” A forward on the JV boys’ basketball team, Morgan can keep up with teammates, jump higher—"which gives me a better advantage over the other players.” His coach says he’s one of the strongest on the team. He can go up Towner Hill, without stopping. And he’s happier. “I’m not depressed anymore.” Classmates congratulated him when the weight started dropping. “They treat me equal,” Morgan states.

He made the high honor roll all last year. He also was voted the 2004 Big Buddy of the Year for mentoring younger kids and Students Against Destructive Decisions member of the year. “He’s a good kid,” Pam says. And … you’re probably wondering. ... Yes, there’s good news. “I asked out a girl!” he reveals. She said yes. They’re still seeing each other. She’s from Towanda, and they may go to her school’s Winter Ball. They’ll also go to each other’s proms.

“And he looks so good in a tux!” Pam boasts. Morgan thinks the obesity rate has gone up among young people. “I just want it to go down,” he states. “Don’t cheat!” he urges others trying to lose weight. It’s not worth it. “Stick with it! Stick with it! Stick with it!” he declares. Today, Morgan’s different. Outside—and inside. “I feel that I can do things when I need to do them,” he says. “That nothing can hold me back.” He’s strong. ... Baggy shorts and all. – (Editor’s Note: Morgan Gardner had success with the Atkins Diet. Different people, though, do well on different diets. If you need to lose a large amount of weight, see your doctor for advice.)