(SBA) - The right stuff. That was the title of a 1984 movie about American astronauts. Great story, great flick. Another narrative depicting greatness is a Sioux City woman: Sissy Crawford.
In high school, she was a swimmer, volleyball player, a track athlete whose fastest time was recorded at 6:48 in the demanding mile run. That was in her youth. After an early marriage, the world caught up with her.
Now age 49, going on 50 in September 2024, Sissy -- a SC-West grad, a 1997 WITCC graduate in nursing who has her own home health care enterprise and recently earned her certification as a fitness instructor and nutrition counselor -- has the figure of a fitness model.
You may not be impressed reading this, that is, until you learn that at one time, Sissy weighed just over 400 pounds. She did. Now she weighs 106/108.
The single mother of two got to where she is now not by pills, bariatric surgery, Weight-Watchers, or Nurtisystem®, she arrived at her aesthetic look by way of consistent hard work, perseverance, determination, proper nutrition, and a whole lot of sweat, tears, and a personal fortitude that comes closest to a competing Olympic athlete.
Yea, yea, sure, you might say, thinking she has all the time in the world with nothing else to do. Uh-uh. Sissy was brought up with three brothers. Her mother was always overweight. “She would drink and we would eat. That was our life back then,” she said. She married and her son (Jamaal) at age 16, and had her daughter (Italy) at age 26 and later divorced. She put herself through cosmetology and beauty school, became a beautician, then went back to school and earned her degree as a practical nurse. She worked at a local hospital, raised both her children alone, then started her own home health care business. Her son is a physician in Atlanta, GA., and her daughter is a nurse in Sioux City.
Today, as a full-time Licensed Practical Nurse, Sissy has a full complement of patients she sees to.
The honest-to-goodness truth to her achieving an incredible ageless body was never simple. She learned to take advantage of every free moment she had and directed it to her fitness goals and the training that came with it.
It began in 2019. At that time, she had ballooned to over 400 pounds.
“I was very embarrassed and ashamed of myself,” Sissy said. “I would stay at home all the time. I’d work, come home, then binge in front of the TV. I’d take my food up to my bed, then sit up in my bed and eat. Then I’d fall asleep.”
Looking back, she said, “I was very successful. I raised two kids on my own, ran a business, had always worked, bought my own home, but… I couldn’t take care of myself.” Why, she pondered can’t I do something positive with myself?
She tried the Keto diet, Weight Watchers, LA Weight Loss and would lose 50/75 pounds; but what she needed to do, she said, was find a permanent solution to her plight. “I would gain the weight back, so I’d get sad, or depressed, eat, socialize and eat. I couldn’t get on plane [no seat large enough] to visit my kids, or even get up, or do anything. I was just miserable.”
There had to be another way, Sissy said.
What started out as reading a diet book, she wound up loading black trash bags with all the high calorie, sugar products, and high cholesterol foods in her house, and dumped the large bags in a garbage disposal repository.
That was Step #1. Step #2 would have her enter into physical training. “I started out walking. I couldn’t go more than 10 minutes. I was short of breath. It would take me an hour to walk a quarter of a mile. This is where I was physically. Before all the weight, I used to run along Bacon Creek daily.”
Yes, there were tears. Crying. “I’d pray to God and ask Him: What can I do?”
One answer that came home was the word “Consistency.” To attain that, she would do a lot of self-talking. “I took each day one at a time… like a recovering alcoholic.”
The weight began to disappear, slowly, but along with that came cravings for food. “I’d mourn for Doritos, pizza, chips, donuts, pop… all of that. What I learned to do was walk it out… walk until the cravings disappeared.” That first year, Sissy lost 100 pounds.
You’ve heard the saying, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night… stays the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Like mailmen, Sissy fought through Iowa’s weather elements of summer, fall, winter, and spring. Thus, weather conditions were not a factor in her training. She worked through extreme heat, fall’s climate, unpredictable winter conditions, and spring’s seasonal awakening.
She picked up a membership at Four Seasons Health Club. “Because I was still heavy and embarrassed with myself, I would don sweatpants and a big hoodie and arrive at the gym very early in the morning.” That was in the middle of the COVID pandemic.
“I’d walk the track, which seemed like miles and miles. I did this for three months. I then turned to running.” Once again, the going was tough. “By this time, it was summer, so I thought I’d run outdoors.”
She turned to running because her weight loss had plateaued. Also, the fat loss had created excess skin. She sought out a surgeon for skin surgery and was told she needed to lose an additional 78 pounds.
Fortuitously, while running on Four Season’s indoor track, her efforts were noticed by long-time Siouxland Acceleration trainer, Jesse Wavrunek, who approached Sissy and visited with her on fitness goals.
“I realized I needed someone to monitor me, to push me, to help me reach my goals, so thinking about it for a short while, I asked Wavrunek to be my trainer.” Not only was her fitness regimen upped, but Sissy learned about nutrition and how it fit into diet and exercise. The new experience taught her how proper, healthy nutrition was critical to a person’s life. That played a part in her obtaining not only a personal trainer certification later, but also an accompanying fitness nutrition certification.
Sissy reached her required goals for skin surgery, underwent 6 ½ hours of corrective and tightening procedures. When it was all said and done, she said, she could look in a mirror without feelings of disparity.
It sounds all so simple, but the reality of her fitness journey was anything but simple. It was very, very hard. It was taxing; it was demanding; it was relentless; it was extremely trying, and it took daily self-talks for Sissy to grab her gear, head to the gym, and submit to Wavrunek’s no-nonsense training sessions.
“I want to be honest,” Sissy said. “I trained with Jesse every single day and never missed a session. I hated every minute of it.” Yet she doggedly persisted until she soon reached a new stage in her mental approach to those daily sessions at Four Seasons. “I just drowned out the dread I put myself through. I accepted what I wanted to do and the light at the end of the tunnel was the transformation I wished to take place.”
“It was the start of my new life, literally,” Sissy said.
Call it a beach body, an athlete’s body, a fitness model’s body, but Sissy’s acquired look accentuated physical – and yes, mental – achievement. She liked herself; she liked the result of all her hard work, effort, dedication, and stick-to-it-evenness. She had arrived, and she did it honestly: no enhancement products, no shortcuts, no pills, no anything other than diligence leading her to where she wanted to be.
The workouts continue right up to the present, and Sissy is fully committed to a fitness lifestyle. She’s gone through all the pitfalls, all the trials, and even lost friends along the way. She’s cried, felt hurt, ostracism, and negative comments exacted upon her from what were jealous individuals.
There are people out there who are bent on disparagement. They are jealous of your endeavors, your goals, your sacrifices, and your accomplishments; they seek to put you down. They don’t want to see you succeed. Sissy experience that aspect during her sojourn.
In October 2024, Sissy Crawford will compete in a body building competition in Sioux Falls, SD. It’s not the final stanza in her life’s commitment. “There’s always more to accomplish, to achieve, to experience,” she said. “That’s what I work for. That’s what I want. That’s where I want to be the rest of my life.”
