Enter Sarah Kretsinger – an amazing woman who is on the ride of her life. She is a woman on a serious mission to lose 160 pounds, and in the process has inspired many others around her, including me.
Here is her journey…
The beginning is a very good place to start
Sarah grew up with an Air Force Dad and moved around a lot before the age of 9 when her family settled in Weatherford, TX. She remembers being overweight as a child, “I was always one of the heavier people in my class. I think I went from small to XL without stopping in between.”
Sarah also recalls when she was 12 years old her aunt giving her hand-me-down clothing that she no longer wanted. It was hard for her to admit that she was the same size as a grown woman who had given birth three times.
Sports weren’t her thing. She preferred to curl up on the couch and escape into a good book.
Fast forward
By the time Sarah reached her late twenties, she got to the point that it was painful to look in the mirror because she hated what she saw.
“I would brush my teeth and look everywhere but straight ahead. I didn't want to go anywhere because I didn't want people to see me. If I did go out with friends I didn't want to blend in, I wanted to fade into the background so no one could see me or judge me. I hated how I looked.”
And then the ugly side of Facebook struck. Her sister posted a picture from their family Thanksgiving and Sarah was mortified. She immediately thought she looked fat and ugly, and assumed that is what other people thought of her. Here is that fateful picture...
Enough was enough.
She approached her doctor about losing weight and diets, and was immediately steered towards weight loss surgery. Sarah was not interested. She had seen several people go through the recovery; the side effects were bad and the financial burden was daunting.
So ignoring her doctor’s recommendation for medical intervention, Sarah decided to go it alone and joined 24 Hour Fitness.
Jumping in head first
Since Sarah had never worked out, she didn’t know the first thing about the equipment and what to do. So she tapped into the knowledge of a personal trainer. She met with her personal trainer once per week and continues to do so. She even posts fun and helpful trainer tips on her Facebook page.
Sarah started out slow and did cardio on the recumbent bike almost every day. As she got stronger, she worked her way up to higher resistance and incline. Then she changed to the elliptical trainer and again worked her way up on resistance and incline. Now she does a blend of elliptical, treadmill and glider.
And she has found a love of the Group X room.
And this is how Sarah came into my life. My Saturday kickboxing class is huge. I regularly have 50-60 people punching, kicking and burning major calories. I remember the first day that Sarah came into my class. She stood in the far back. Little did she know that I make my rounds around the entire room. I noticed her immediately because she was smiling! Despite the intensity of the class and the fact that she had never taken the format before, she was determined to work hard. And she was smiling.
She was clearly having fun and that made me smile.
Sarah has branched out with group fitness and tests out a variety of classes that challenge her in different ways – boot camp, athletic training, aqua, 24LIFT, kickboxing and Zumba.
Sarah exercises every day. No excuses.
Her goal
Sarah’s sights are set on a goal – to be healthy. She has discovered that the average weight for her height is between 113-150. She has a medium skeletal build, so a realistic goal is closer to 135.
Sarah says, “I'll be happy with 150. Of course my body may say I'm staying at 160. I just have to remember that I'm aiming for the healthy goal, not the number that I think will make me ‘beautiful.’ That's the main goal – which is a little daunting when you start out at over 300 pounds so I make short term goals.”
Sarah’s first goal was to lose 50 pounds in 5 months. And bam! She succeeded. Her second goal is to have her weight start with a “1” by her next birthday.
“Even if it's 199.9 I’ll be happy!” Sarah muses.
Changing her eating habits
Exercise is only part of an overall healthy lifestyle. Sarah learned this, so she took strides to correct her bad fast-food habits, cut calories and nourish her body.
She tells me “I count calories. Which is ironic because I never wanted to do Weight Watchers because I thought there was too much counting. Now I count to 1500 instead of 33 or 36. Go figure.
Sarah uses the Apex program to help keep tabs, which you get free when you work with a personal trainer at 24 Hour Fitness. She logs her food and it calculates the calorie count and percentages made up from fat, carbs, and protein.
She keeps her calorie count between 1300-1500, which she says, “sounds small, and I never thought I'd be the person to say this, but I can't eat much more than that or I feel sick. I used to hate people that made that kind of statement.”
Fitness is life
Sarah recalls “the first time I really got into [fitness] was when I went to the tailor to take my clothes in FOUR sizes. Then just last month people at work started asking me how I was losing the weight. And a lady at work decided she was going to change the way she ate and asked me for nutrition tips!”
Yes, there are set-backs
“Most of the set-backs have been mental.” Sarah reports, “I've made all this progress, and a small part of me is afraid I'll somehow go backwards or gain the weight back, so I tend to push myself harder.”
She tells me “it's still a little hard to get out of my comfort zone. I still think people are watching me and judging me as the ‘fat girl,’ but I know if they are watching me it's probably to see what I'm doing. When I do cardio I watch to see what other people do in case I want to try it.”
Staying Motivated
To stay motivated Sarah just has to go as far as her mirror. She can see (and feel) the progress.
“Today I weigh as much as I did when I graduated high school, but I'm in much better shape. I can actually see muscle definition! I am so much stronger now, too. I can actually jog for 2 minutes straight. When I first started I was sweating by the time I reached the top of the stairs to start my workout.”
Sarah is a real person
Whenever I feel burned out at the gym or like drowning myself in thumbprint cookies, I think of Sarah. She is not only inspiring, but is healthy, confident and beautiful.
Sarah says of her journey “I thought I had to be thin in order to be beautiful. Now I know I'm beautiful, the rest is just numbers and outer appearance.”
Sarah is real. She doesn’t have a live-in chef, nor does she get wake-up calls from Jillian Michaels. She didn’t have surgery, starve herself or take a magic pill. My friend Sarah is doing it the old-fashioned way – regular exercise and healthy eating. 82 pounds down. And she shows no signs of slowing.
And I am lucky to be part of Sarah’s beautiful journey in a small way.
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