‘Healthier lifestyle’ helps Marco woman shed 50 pounds

Photo by QUENTIN ROUX, Staff
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Alison Bergen walks around Mackle Park each morning as part of her weight loss regimen.

When the average American decides to lose weight, it can sometimes be a halfhearted effort. He or she might go to the gym for a few days before quitting, or go on some trendy diet that seems impossible to maintain.

When Allison Bergen decided to lose weight, she made a drastic commitment. She decided to go on a 130-mile walking trip.

The 48-year old Marco woman said she weighed 176 pounds at one point. But thanks to her decision to go for her walk and to join the Weight Watchers group in Marco, Bergen has been able to lose 50 pounds.

In January, Bergen went to hear motivational speaker Debra Flinn speak at Subway restaurant on Marco Island.

Flinn wrote a book on her experience walking from Cape Coral to Dandridge, Tenn., an 874-mile, 66-day trip, called “Desperate to Dandridge.” Now Flinn runs a women’s ministry that, among other things, encourages women to take responsibility for losing weight.

Flinn said she was organizing a new trip called “Desperate to Disney” and was recruiting women to join.

Bergen found hope from Flinn’s message and decided to go on the walk, joining six other women on the walk from Cape Coral, Florida to Disney World.

“My husband and daughter have been running half marathons,” said Bergen. “I thought it was my turn to do something.”

Bergen said she has never been much of a runner, so this walk seemed like a good fit for her.

Due to family commitments, Bergen could not make the full 200-mile walk. She could only go for eight days, for a total of 130 miles – still no small feat.

Before the walk in March, Bergen said, she bought a new pair of sneakers and broke them in at home.

“New Balance. I swear by them,” said Bergen of her favorite brand of walking shoe.

The daily schedule for the trip was 10 miles of walking in the morning and 5 miles in the late afternoon. Subway sponsored the event and fed the women sandwiches between walks.

The women walked U.S. Highway 41 for most of the journey. The traffic from the road was a little frightening for the travelers.

“There were four lanes in each direction and cars were whizzing by,” said Bergen.

But Bergen said the weather for the trip was ideal.

“For Florida, it was beautiful,” said Bergen, who credits cloud cover with no rain for moderate temperatures.

However, the journey was not without a few painful obstacles. Bergen said she had issue with her toes peeling during the walk.

“I lost a few toenails,” said Bergen.

The injuries piled up even for some of the other women.

“I’ve been a walker for a long time,” said Bergen. “So I didn’t suffer a lot of the problems that some of the other girls did. Some people had raw blisters, their feet were on fire.”

Because Bergen had some experience with long distances, she teamed with another speed walker, Carol Case from Ft. Myers Beach.

Bergen described the 68-year-old Case as a vibrant woman.

“She was in incredible shape,” said Bergen.

Bergen and Case were the fastest walkers of the group. Bergen said that sometimes they would finish an hour before the other women, which created camaraderie for the two walking partners.

It wasn’t easy for Bergen to leave early from the “Desperate to Disney” walk. She said she would have liked to have completed the full 200 miles, but having a husband and a middle-school-aged son at home did not leave her much choice.

Still, the walk was enough of a boost to swing her into a newer, healthier lifestyle. She lost 4 pounds during the trip and continues to walk every day.

Her new lifestyle is made up of 5-mile walks in the mornings, Tuesday night meetings at the Marco Weight Watchers and a healthier diet inspired by the Weight Watchers program.

Bergen starts each day by walking her two dogs a mile-and-a-half around her neighborhood before going to Mackle Park to complete her daily walking regimen.

Since walking alone gets tiresome, Bergen said she would like to begin a walking club that would meet her at 8:30 a.m., at Mackle Park.

Anne Batte, the team leader at the Marco chapter of Weight Watchers, called Bergen “a role model” for others at the Weight Watchers meeting.

Bergen blushed at the compliment and insisted that without Weight Watchers, she would have never been able to drop 50 pounds.

Before beginning her new lifestyle, Bergen said she was never a “joiner,” but finds the meetings very supportive.

“I think if I was doing something on my own, I would tend to be a quitter,” said Bergen.

But thanks to that first step of her 130-mile walk and a support group to keeps her going, Allison Bergen is now a healthier, happier woman.