"I was very, very active all through my life, from the time I was a child up until ten years ago. I skied, swam, played tennis and golfed. And all of a sudden, I couldn't do anything anymore. That's when I decided I wasn't going to live the rest of my life that way," said Mia Benjes of Duxbury, a suburb of Boston. "I gained 30 pounds over the last couple of years. And the sad thing is, my Golden Retriever gained ten pounds because we couldn't walk anymore. So he suffered along with me."