TOPS (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) is a weight-loss club whose members meet on a weekly basis. It turns 60 years this year
By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
If you had a bad day on the scale, everyone understands. After all, it’s family. They’ve all been there themselves.
“Nobody ever says anything negative or bad about it. We ask you what did you struggle with or talk about what you did well and ask what we can do to help you,” said Jennifer Kemak.
Kemak, 42, is the leader of TOPS Chapter 0238 in Phelps. She and 10 other members meet each Tuesday at 5 p.m. to individually step on a scale and record their weight. Then they have a short business meeting and share a program that one member has designed for that night.
TOPS — Taking Off Pounds Sensibly — is a weight-loss club with 3,856 chapters nationally, 143 of those in New York state. Members range in age in Phelps from 42 to 88. Some have graduated in the program to the KOPS level — Keeping Off Pounds Sensibly.
And some, like Kemak, have hit the Holy Grail “Century” mark, losing 100 pounds. She did it, then did it again — ending up 220 pounds less than she was when she started.
“I’ve struggled with weight all my life,” she said.
Things got bad enough for her to get gastric-bypass surgery and to use TOPS for a foundation to lose the weight and keep it off. The proof of her success is jolting.
“I have a picture of me in my largest pants,” she said. “I have sons who are 11 and 6 years old. In the picture, I’m on one side of the pants; my 11-year-old is on the other. I have another where I’m on one side of the pants and my husband is on the other.”
The Tuesday meetings are held in the Phelps United Church. TOPS members show up, take their shoes off and step onto a scale before the meeting starts. Their weight is accurately and secretly recorded.
“I like to refer to this as my healthy lifestyle group,” Kemak said. “It’s not just a weight-loss group. We touch on a lot of things. We do the healthy-eating part, the losing-weight part, the exercise part and we do touch on mental health and having fun.
“We’ve become like a family on Tuesday nights. We’re such a small group. We laugh and we have a good time together.”
“In TOPS, each person chooses their own way of weight loss,” said Mary Ann Gier, 88. “Some people count calories. For myself, I had to cut out ice cream one summer to get myself losing calories. Then, after I reached my goal weight, I could have ice cream or not.”
She’s at the KOPS level now and has been there for some years.
“Some people work better when they’re in a social group,” explained Robin Hilburn, 74. “Any program you get into, you get out of it what you put into it. There are a lot of programs out there. You have to realize it’s a lifetime choice to be healthy. Eating healthy. Exercising. Staying active. It’s a social group but we’re also here to help you focus on losing weight. It keeps you accountable. It’s an option whether you weigh in each week.”
People progress as each week goes by, but sometimes there’s a little stumble over some cake at a birthday party or rhubarb pie in the spring or cookies at Christmas time.
“In our meetings, nobody shames you if you had a bad day on the scale,” Kemak said. “Nobody ever says anything negative or bad about it. It just makes you feel like, ‘OK, I had a bad time at the scale but that doesn’t mean I’ve erased all my progress. I’ll do better next week.’”
The Phelps TOPS marked 60 years of activity in April with a special meeting that included displays, food items and a lot of information about TOPS. The club has done well at state recognition days.
“We’ve gotten awards for our recordkeeping,” Kemak said. “We’ve participated in baggy clothes parades where people who have lost all that weight can bring in baggy clothes and show off. We have KOPS celebrations.”
Getting involved in TOPS is easy. Come to your first meeting, a “visitation” and decide if you want to join. You can ask a member to host you or come alone. If you decide this might work for you, there’s a $73 annual membership fee which includes the monthly national magazine and each weekly meeting has a $2 dues charge.
The KOPS group, members who achieve and maintain their goal weight, has its own special gatherings and in this area is called the Apple Blossom Society.
Because TOPS is a national organization, members can access meetings wherever they’re traveling. “I made a trip to Kansas and I visited a chapter there,” Gier said. “They met at 9:30 in the morning and after that they all went out to eat.”
She said she owed part of her KOPS success to perfect attendance, which is why she found a chapter meeting to attend while she was visiting in Kansas.
The TOPS.org website can connect you with chapters nationwide or online meetings.
How Jennifer Kemak Lost 220 Pounds
As the leader of TOPS Chapter 0238 in Phelps and someone who needs a regimen to maintain her own weight loss, Jennifer Kemak gets up every morning at 4:30, is at the gym at 5 a.m., spends 45 minute to an hour on the treadmill, which she dials up to level 14 (“That’s mountain goat range,” she said), finishing with 30 minutes of weight training (135-pound leg extensions). “And I’m home by 6:30 to get the boys on the school bus.”
What follows is a big breakfast of protein and veggies and a lot of water.
Kemak had a gastric-bypass surgery and to uses TOPS for a foundation to lose the weight and keep it off.