Carla

At the age of 35 I began wondering if I would live my entire life without ever being able to run or do other physical activity where I could use my body to its full potential. I was disgusted with the way I looked as well as my eating habits. I had hit an all time high of 200lbs and I was ready for a change. In the fall of 2008, I began walking on the treadmill at work. That winter, my sister-in-law dragged me out for a run on a cold, icy December afternoon. By early 2009, I was training to run the 10Km run on Ottawa Race Weekend and began running outdoors from time to time with a work colleague. I had made some improvements to my eating, and had increased my physical activity, but it wasn’t enough to condition me for the 10km run. I walked most of it, but was proud to have finished it. I had also managed to lose some weight in the process, so I continued with my physical activity and trying to cut where I could from my diet to achieve some weight loss results.

After a year and a half of extremely slow weight loss, I decided that I needed to finally commit to the task at hand and take off the weight that was holding me back from being the physically active person that I wanted to be. I was weighing in at 185lbs when I decided to join my friend Sylvie for a workout at ERF in late October, 2010. After my initial session, I knew that this is what I needed to keep me on track and signed up right away for sessions once a week. I would do the rest on my own. My trainer gave me a customized work out plan to do at home with my own equipment and I began to keep a diary of my meals, the activity that I had done that day and how I felt. My trainer would check in on my eating and exercise during every workout and he recommended great foods and meals. He was great at ensuring that I set goals, and that I did what I had to do to achieve them. He pushed me without being pushy and understood when I truly couldn’t push anymore. The customized workouts targeted the areas that needed most attention and after just 5 months at ERF I had lost 40lbs! At 145lb, I feel great, have regained energy, strength, confidence and can do things that I never thought I could do. I will continue running on Ottawa Race Weekend, who knows, maybe there’s a half marathon in my future!