Fourteen years ago, a friend of mine told me about a weight loss competition that she participated in at the YMCA and said another one was getting ready to start after the new year.  My friend Mandy and I signed up for the Lean Team competition as a duo named Double Trouble. We ended up winning the competition and I had the greatest overall weight loss percentage. I was incredibly motivated… until I wasn’t. The weight would slowly and surely creep back on and I would go to the gym but it wasn’t until another competition rolled around that I got truly motivated to lose the same weight I had already lost. I was part of a few winning teams over those years. 

During covid, I started working out at home and lost a large amount of weight. As amazing as this all was, I missed my YMCA family. It became more than a gym, but a place where I went to socialize and relieve some stress. I kept the weight off for about 2 years, but had foot surgery and I gained almost all of the 120 lbs. back that I had lost. I went to the YMCA when I could motivate myself but it was difficult because my foot recovery took a year and a half until I could really get back into doing the classes I love. I joined another competition and started dropping weight. I realized that at 40+ it wasn’t nearly as easy as it had been in my 20s and 30s. It came off slowly but I decided that unlike the past, I wanted to make sure that I weighed less from the end of one competition to the beginning of the next. That was my new goal, as opposed to winning at any cost, which sometimes included fattening up before a competition. Over the last 3 or 4 competitions, I have been less than the previous one each time.

I have been at the YMCA so long that I have seen so many members and staff come and go. I have made friends that I will keep a lifetime. My YMCA family was there when my dog died. They were even more so there when my mom died. And then, they showed up with so much support, kindness and love for my family when my husband and the father of my two teenagers passed away the day after Christmas 2024. Paul had been a partner of mine in a competition we won many years ago. I knew he was as competitive as I was so I hoped it would motivate him to continue the healthy lifestyle, which would also help keep me on track. I was always obsese but he was obese with diabetes and high blood pressure. It was life or death in his circumstance. Unfortunately, he lost his motivation and his health problems took him at the young age of 45. I made a decision very shortly after that I would commit to a healthy lifestyle for myself and my children. I now had full control of what foods came into my house and have been committing to living healthier and hopefully helping our children build healthier habits. They are more susceptible to his same health problems since they run in his family and I want to make sure they don’t meet a similar fate at such a young age. 

The YMCA has supported my kids and I in this physical, mental and emotional journey the last 10+ months, as they have supported me the last 15 years.