Hello…I am Karen:
What is so amazing to me is that this entire journey to health started after I saw a photo that Shane took of me years ago. It was at that moment I realized I couldn’t live in that body any longer! Then Angie came bee bopping down here after doing her first few weeks on the Take Shape for Life program looking fabulous! I was even more motivated to say the least. After a very long and inspirational e-mail from Angie, I also started following her lead and the rest is history.

One of the things that helped me even get started was hearing her story. She shared with me how she started out just like I was then….uncomfortable and too embarrassed to even work out for fear of being the biggest girl in the gym. I saw results very quickly. My husband and I quickly realized we wanted to take the next step. That’s when we joined the gym and started working out. We decided we needed to both be healthy not only for ourselves but to live a long long time for our children and their children. We set a goal together to lose at least 20 pounds and lower our cholesterol before we went through our life insurance exams. It felt soo great to realize we reached our mark!

My next benchmark came when Deb at Total Fitness talked me into a weight loss challenge which helped me drop another 20. Since then I have done a combination of all the nutrition and exercise advise I gained to bring me to my current weight of 128. That’s over 60 pounds lighter than the picture you see below! I still look back and can’t believe how unhealthy I had let myself become.

I never thought I would be able to call myself a runner. My thirteen year old daughter and I ran our first 5K in September. I never would have had the courage to do that three years ago when I started this journey. My goal now is to train for a half marathon after Bekah and I run the Shamrock in March…so excited! It will be my 40th birthday and could not think of a more amazing way to spend this special day than with my daughter celebrating and living life to the fullest.

I feel so close to God out there running and I know without His wind to get me through all of this, I would have not made it this far. I hope if anything someone is inspired to make some changes no matter where they are in their life right now. I encourage you to make that healthy goal a healthy lifestyle. See you at the gym!