Arlene Wint-Thorpe:

Before she started doing karate in the early 1990’s, Arlene Wint-Thorpe weighed about 485 pounds.

Today, she is proud that she is half that weight and losing.

“Karate has slowly helped me to lose the weight,” Wint-Thorpe told All Woman. “Initially one of my sisters used to do zendo karate. Through her I met the Sosai Plummer, head of the World Zendo karate association and he encouraged me to try it.”

It has not been an easy road for her though. She has started and stopped many times over the years. (Right now she is not as active in it as she used to be.) But several things out of the rigorous training and the teamwork helped to motivate her.

“Karate has helped me to be disciplined. what I have learned through karate has kept me through all these years.

The motto was ‘never give up,’ she said. “In Zendo we were a family. I felt accepted and that boosted my self-esteem.”

It was that boost that helped her to stick with her karate training. Her involvement was such that she got an award in July 2002.

“At the championships every year I would help with marking and scoring the kata, fighting points and so on,” explained Thorpe, who is a trained teacher with over 18 years experience. “For my contribution in doing that over the years I got this trophy.”

Incidentally, these are not the only trophies for this multi-talented woman. In 2000 she was awarded by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission for being the most outstanding Folk Teacher after the choir which she coached at Naggo Head Primary in St Catherine won two gold medals for their entries in that years festival.

Wint-Thorpe was also awarded by the Optimist Club of Braeton, St Catherine for outstanding contributions to education.

“I had just set up the computer lab at the school (Naggos Head Primary) and I was also working with the choir. I guess the club was impressed by my work,” said a modest Thorpe, who has several certificates in computing.

It could be hard to believe that this achiever was plagued with self-esteem problems due to her weight and at one time refused to leave her house if she did not have to work.

“When I went out people used to say ‘mampy’ (Jamaican slang for overweight). It scared me to the point where I did not want to come out of the house,” she said. “I would pay someone to do my errands for me. My self-esteem was very low. I am a churchgoer, but at times even going up for communion was a feat. I would feel people watching me and when I went back to my chair my hands would be sweating.”

For Wint-Thorpe, her battle with her weight had her locked in a vicious cycle.

“When I was depressed about my weight I would eat uncontrollably or binge. Then the weight would come on and I would feel sorry for myself and binge again,” she said.

But she said one day she ‘woke up and smelt the coffee.’

‘I looked in the mirror and I said to myself ‘look at your good points,’ My eyes are pretty and my nose is cute. I decided that I had to love myself no matter what,” said Thorpe, who would also give the same advice to the approximately 60 per cent of Jamaican women who are either overweight or obese.

A person is considered ‘overweight’ when he or she is above a healthy weight, which varies according to a person’s height. Obesity is defined as increased body weight due to excessive accumulation of fat.

According to Wint-Thorpe, she had tried a range of diets.

“I tried Herbalife, Symmetry, Slim fast, cabbage soup, the Atkins diet and you name it. I found that some of them worked for a while but as soon as you came off them the weight came back,” she said. “By doing research and experimenting with diets I gradually found what works. I realised that I needed to make a lifestyle change and that is what I did.”

That change included trying to have a more positive outlook on life.

“Depression used to trigger my eating. I used to look for comfort in food. For some people when they are stressed they lose weight. For me when I am stressed I gain. So I have tried to not get stressed or depressed and to be happy,” she said.

Her diet has also changed. She eats a lot more healthy foods as well as doing exercises.

“I have made it a part of the way I live. I try not to use artificial seasoning like soy sauce and so on. I don’t use oil. I will boil the chicken after I season it with natural herbs,” she said. “I drink a lot of water. Swimming also helps me.”

An important part of her success too, she said, has been her support system. Apart from parents and siblings (two sisters and a brother), she credits partner of almost 20 years, Sidney Thorpe, for sticking with her.

“He made the transition with me to boil chicken. It is quite tasty and he will tell you that,” said Thorpe, saying that they were even more in love now than when they met many years ago.

“I was listening to a radio programme while I was studying at college. It was March 30, 1984. I called the announcer to get a break from the studies. While he was playing his music, he told me to talk to a friend he had in studio with him,” reminisced Wint-Thorpe.

“That friend was Sidney Thorpe. We had a long conversation that night and the next morning he called me. We found out that we have a lot in common – music, philosophy on life and so on.”

Thorpe is the keyboard player for the popular local band, the Fabulous Five (Fab Five.) He is also blind – a factor that Thorpe said did not in any way affect their romance.

“I knew he was blind but that did not stop me.,” said Thorpe, although admitting that initially she did not realise that their friendship would have led to love and marriage.

“When we met – I was much slimmer then – I was 178 pounds. I was very choosy about dating and I had the perfect picture of what I wanted my husband to be.I knew our friendship was special from we met but I did not know it would have blossomed into that,” she said.

After she started putting on weight she said he encouraged her to stick to her diets.

“He has always been supportive,” she said. “We have been through a lot together.”

That has included the loss of a child in 2001.

“The baby died inside of me. I went through induced labour. It was very difficult and I could have lost my mind but God kept me,” said Wint-Thorpe, who is an organist for two churches in St Catherine and one in Kingston. “The experience has made me stronger. Maybe if I had had that child I would not have been able to achieve all that I have done recently. But sometimes I still wonder why.”

It would have been the couple’s first child. The pregnancy, Wint-Thorpe said, was high-risk because of her age and weight. But it is obviously still a sore point on which she did not wish to dwell.

Along with Thorpe, she said the support from her church family has helped to pull her through.

“My choir at Holy Trinity church has really helped me to feel like I am doing something. They have grown so much. For example the chief soloist did not want to sing initially, but now she is much more spontaneous,” she said.

Persons like Father Winston Green, who she said, has helped keep her marriage strong by encouraging them to participate in an annual renewal of vows.

“Once per year – every Sunday after Christmas, all married couples renew their vows. So last December when Father Green saw me he was joking about how bright I look. According to him, it is only when Sidney is around that I look so bright,” she said laughing.

For now, Wint-Thorpe is happy. Translate that into keeping weight off. Her immediate plans, she said, are to continue her work in the church and to try to catch up with her husband, who is more advanced in music and computing than she is.