My Story

At about eleven years old, I began my weight battle and childhood addiction to food. For the next several years, I watched the scale go up after repeated “dieting” attempts and eventually gave up for the next several years. At 21 years old, I married my high school sweetheart, Keith.

On my wedding day in February 1993, I have the memory of walking down the aisle as a “plus sized” bride. Six months later I became pregnant and had a daughter named Ashley. As my weight was now over 325 pounds, I enjoyed play dates, milkshakes and Oreo’s and being a new mommy.

Two years later, I gave birth to Kayla and for the next few years it was much of the same. I justified my existence that I was too busy and too far gone to do anything about my weight. As I continued I stay close to 350 pounds, I had a son we named Jake in June 1999. Shortly after he was born, I fell apart. I was living my life as an academy award winning actress, pretending that my weight problem didn’t exist, while inside I felt trapped and tortured.

The thoughts that I was ugly, judged, and pathetic ran through my mind nearly all day, every day. It hit me one night, alone in my car that I had been treating my obesity as a disease that I had no control over. My mother had been diagnosed with Leukemia several years prior, and I had spent many nights praying for her to stay healthy but often feeling very helpless. In reality, my being overweight was not at all like an illness. It was my personal and lifelong struggle, not something that just appeared out of nowhere.

I cried out of desperation to God that night and said to Him that I was done fighting, and that I needed strength to fight this war. I also realized in those moments that I had to take personal responsibility for my struggle or I would never fix it for good.

I went in to my house and proclaimed to my husband that I was done with dieting, however I was going to lose weight for good and then write a book to show others what I had found. He then made an attempt to bring me back down to earth by saying- Do it, then talk! And I agreed and decided to take the challenge! I woke up then next morning and began my new life.

And from that day on, despite lots of circumstances out of my control, many vacations, another pregnancy, relapse of my mom’s Leukemia, and many more challenges along the way, I lost nearly 200 pounds and have kept it off for good! I can honestly say that I no longer live in fear of being fat again, because what I have found is that the ability to be fit and healthy lives within me. It is not something that can be taken away.

We fear things that we don’t expect or that we can’t foresee, we shouldn’t fear things that we have the power to control. My life’s passion is to see the world “ditch the diet!” for good- seven years later, I have now run 5 marathons, I am a certified personal trainer, spinning instructor as well as running coach with The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

I still wake up each day and thank God that I have this platform and this voice to share the spirit and message of hope. I know there are many of you who are like how I once was, frustrated and exhausted from constant failure. You know that you can be living better and feeling better.

My story can be your story or the story of someone you love. Life is full of many trials and struggles, this doesn’t need to be one of them!

Dare to be Remarkable

Much Love.