The old Marilyn would have taken one look at the scales and given up.

But this time, when Cullman resident Marilyn Rice saw that she had gained a pound instead of continuing to lose the weight she has been dropping since the first of the year, she had a different attitude.

“It made me real ashamed of myself,” Rice said of her small gain over the past month, “but it made me stop and reconsider. You can’t let setbacks get you down, and sometimes when you’re down, if you pick yourself up you’ll get more encouraged.”

With every weight loss plan Rice has tried before, she has gone into despair over scales that wouldn’t budge.

“I would quit going to meetings and go eat everything I wanted to,” she said. “There’s no success in that.”

Now, however, Rice has someone more to answer to than herself. As The Cullman Times has chronicled Rice’s journey this year, Rice has found that people around town recognize her as “the lady from the paper,” and they give her a great deal of positive feedback which encourages her to keep going. One woman even told Rice that reading about her experience had prompted the woman to change her own eating habits.

The encouragement extends outside Cullman County’s borders, as well. Rice, who works at Cullman’s General Nutrition Company (GNC) store, was surprised to receive a call from someone else in the company one day, telling her they had read about her on the Internet. GNC posted her story on its company Web site, so now people around the country know about her quest.

Rice has lost 15 pounds and two dress sizes since she began her diet.

“My clothes are looser, so that’s better,” she said.

But she still has the goal of losing 25 more pounds by New Year’s Eve.

“I’ve got to put my best foot forward and strive toward my goal,” she said.

Part of that means getting through the challenges of summer. The July 4 holiday is one of the easier ones for Rice when it comes to food, because she can enjoy treats like grilled chicken, fresh vegetables and watermelon, but that’s not all she has to consider. The family togetherness reminds her of the times she shared with her mother, who died in February, and her sadness makes her want to eat. Add to that the soaring temperatures that have limited her walking, and she says that’s the reason she had a hard time dropping the weight in June.

Rice said she has renewed her resolve, though.

“I have 10 weeks to do good by Labor Day,” Rice said. “I don’t want to go downhill.”