Lisa Saunders.
Lisa Saunders was working out at Edgewood Park early to get her morning calisthenics reps in using the playground as her personal gym before starting the rest of the day.
Saunders used to weigh 400 pounds and now guides other people of color in weight loss based on her personal experience while taking part in an overeaters anonymous group.
“I was the only brown girl in the group,” Saunders said in a conversation during the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’S “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program. “And I said, ‘Why don’t we talk about this as brown people? We don’t talk about overeating and gluttony?’”
Saunders was working out on the playground using the handlebars to do assisted pull-ups. She needed to wrap up in time to start work at Yale New Haven Hospital at 11 a.m. as a tech assistant.
She has a strict routine for each morning to make an hour of what she doesn’t call “exercise” but “an hour to love on myself.” She said the hardest part is waking up at 6:30 a.m. to put her sports bra on.
“You have 24 hours a day,” Saunders said. “You can take one hour to yourself. I live about a mile away from here. I’ll leave the house around 7 a.m. every morning and jog to this park to workout until around 9:00 a.m. usually before heading to work.”
For this entire week, Saunders is focusing on calisthenics to train herself. Her goal is to start a calisthenics-in-the-park group for other women.
“I do pull-ups, push-ups, dips — all modified. I do four different exercises, four times. It’s a circuit. After that, I just jog back to my house. I have to train myself before I can train anyone else,” Saunders said. “I was inspired by my own journey as a woman of color to make a difference but anyone of any race is welcome to join me.”
The 44-year-old also advises people struggling with binge eating to: “Stay busy and have an agenda.” She said that a lot of people end up overeating because of being bored.
When Saunders weighed 370 pounds, she said that she couldn’t even walk around Hillhouse High School. She was out of breath and on an asthma pump.
“I just focused on one hour each day. Whether it was fast or slow,” Saunders said. “And so I built up my endurance and stamina.
“But then I decided that I wanted to participate in yoga and to sweat. So I went in there and thought I would be doing slow movement yoga. No, I was doing cardio yoga. It was a rude awakening but I pushed through it, and then I got addicted to it.”
Saunders ended up losing 150 pounds over the course of 18 months. She created “Binging while Black,” a Facebook binge-eating support group for people of color. The group involves mentoring 500 women from all over the world, online. The group meetings are held every Sunday morning at 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. through a Facebook live. Those who want to be mentored by Saunders one-on-one can pay her to schedule a personal meeting held later on Sunday, after the group meeting.
Saunders also wrote a food journal published on Amazon called: Faith Fasting & Fitness: Your journal to freedom.
“The anonymous group that I attended was very welcoming, but I was very shocked that other nationalities wouldn’t talk about their issues,” Saunders said. “The book goes over what faith, fasting, and fitness means and it tells you that you have to believe in something. You have to believe in something higher than yourself.”
Saunders said that her higher power got her to where she is now. Her first step was giving up something that she loved, and that was eating meat. She discovered that she was having digestion problems because of meat; so she became a vegan.
“I was a fan of fried chicken and fried foods, and I didn’t know moderation. I just knew extreme elimination,” Saunders said. “I went to see an herbalist in New York, and he told me that meat takes so long to go through your body. I added in fruits and vegetables, which fixed my digestive system, and that’s when the weight started coming off.”
Another change that Saunders made was eating only one meal a day. She tells people to throw the food pyramid out of the window. She said that you only get to spike your insulin one time, and that there’s an epidemic with diabetes because of people overeating.
“You need to go on a two-hour eating window and 22 hours of fasting,” Saunders said. “And then guess what? Half of that time your body is sleeping, so just pick a time of the day that’s your one meal.”
The one meal that Saunders leans toward is something that has only one ingredient. She said that if it has more than one ingredient that she has to think about it.
Saunders usually shops at the Edge of the Woods Market to grocery shop. She also attends the farmer markets held at Career High School on Saturday mornings. She said that there’s a mushroom farmer that brings all different kinds of mushrooms. One of her go-to meals has become oyster mushrooms. She brings them home and pops them in the air fryer to enjoy.
“That mimics the friedness, without all of the calories,” Saunders said. “I also love eggplant.”
If Saunders wants to have a day where she eats more than one meal, then she will fast a little bit longer the next day or drink a gallon of water with electrolytes while adding on extra cardio.
“I usually plan my ‘cheat days,’ but I don’t call it that. It’s usually a Saturday where I know I’m going to eat what I want,” Saunders said. “And then I know that I’m going to get back on track for the rest of the week.”
Saunders finished her core workouts for that morning and jogged back home. She then got ready for work to head into Yale New Haven Hospital for her 11 a.m. hospital shift.
After work, she arrived home around 10 p.m. and walked her two dogs, a yorkie and a pitbull, around the block twice. This is also a part of her nightly routine.
“I’m a dog mom,” Saunders said. “My biggest thing was eating late at night, so I made a rule where I don’t chew when I get home. I’ll make a cup of chamomile tea to wind down for the night and forget about food.”
Saunders also avoids watching TV before bed. It’s either reading or listening to music.
After the walk, Saunders took the stress off of her day by hopping into her in-house sauna that she bought off of Amazon.
“Best investment that I’ve ever made,” Saunders said. “I call it ‘detoxing my day.’ ”
Click on the video to watch the full conversation on the "Word on the Street" segment of WNHH FM's "LoveBabz LoveTalk" program.