MY STORY: KARIE

I love being a mom and I love my two boys. They’re the reason I started on this journey – actually, it was the pregnancies! During my first, I gained 64 pounds (gasp!) – yes, 64 pounds, even though I was very diligent about following nutritional guidelines for healthy pregnancies.

So after the birth of my oldest son, I began working on losing the weight. I was able to drop about 40 pounds when I became pregnant with our second son. During this pregnancy, I gained 75 pounds (bigger gasp!). I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t matter what I ate or how much I worked out. My body was simply a fat-storing machine. I officially weighed in at 220 pounds at my heaviest. I never before had to lose that much weight.

“I have never been happier.”

In May 2007, I began my journey, and I worked very hard at it. Within five years I had reached my goals and was in the best shape of my life, except for one area – my stomach. While taking classes at the gym and speaking to instructors, then discussing with my primary physician, I learned that my stomach would never be flat and the extra skin from the weight loss would always be there. Turns out that during my pregnancies my muscles were torn apart, leaving a one- to two- inch gap. This was on top of the eight-plus inches of extra skin. I felt powerless and was not as happy about achieving my weight loss goals I as I should have been.