Ten Years Later Read Online Free PDF Page A

diets I liked,” she says. “I wanted it to be
     sustainable. And then, ninety-eight percent of it was portion control.”
    Amy knew she also needed to sweat. At 490 pounds, she was embarrassed to begin working
     out in a gym. She decided to start moving to Billy Blanks Tae Bo fitness VHS tapes
     in her living room, and to walk around the block. Once. Amy literally took it one
     step at a time.
    I ask her how long it took before exercise felt a bit easier.
    “Oh, my God. Ha! Probably six months. The first week I went three times around the
     block, so each week I had a new goal. I would either walk two times around or I would
     go one time around, but it had to be faster than the week prior. So, if it took me
     an hour the first week, the next had to be under fifty-nine minutes. Every week there
     was a goal for either duration or time. Even with Tae Bo, I would only add a minute.
     It wasn’t like, Oh, I’m feeling great this week, I’m gonna do twenty minutes . I set realistic goals.”
    In nine months, Amy lost a hundred pounds. She rewarded herself with a membership
     to the Anoka YMCA, undeterred by judging eyes.
    “Sometimes people would look,” she says, “but people stared at me when I was five
     hundred pounds, so people staring at me now was not any different.”
    Amy focused on using the Nautilus and cardio machines but avoided the group fitness
     classes. She drew the line there for bravery.
    “You’re freaked out. You’re way too scared to do that in front of everybody.”
    Amy continued working on her health and working at the software company that had taken
     a chance on her. She was also busy raising Marcus and Terrell. As sore as her body
     was, Amy says the tougher challenge was mental.
    “There are just days that suck going to the gym. You’ve had a long day at work, you’re
     tired, you have stuff to do, there are groceries to get, the house is dirty, and so
     there are always roadblocks. You can use every excuse in the book not to go. So I
     think for me, it was more mental—mentally getting through the excuses.”
    Excited for her fresh start, Amy’s coworkers took it upon themselves to create online
     profiles for her on two dating websites. InMarch 2006, Amy met a man named Daryl Barnes over the Internet. He lived in Virginia
     and worked in Washington, D.C. She admits now that it was too soon, but Amy moved
     her family from Minnesota to Virginia to live with Daryl after knowing him for just
     three months. She loved the idea of a new beginning.
    “I was starting from scratch—from the gym, to people, to my job, to everything.”
    Before she moved, she landed a job in D.C. with the Gates Foundation, supporting directors
     involved with improving education in the United States. She also joined Gold’s Gym.
     She and Daryl were married in June 2007 and amicably divorced in July 2008. She kept
     his last name and calls him a good man. They both simply moved forward too quickly.
    Amy’s quest for fitness and health continued. She now weighed 240 pounds and began
     to experiment with equipment that would reshape her body.
    “I was using free weights and doing group fitness classes, because they helped with
     the weight loss and there was a sense of accountability. Gold’s Gym is more of a muscle-head
     gym, so that was my first taste of seeing bodybuilders and people in the fitness industry
     work out,” she explains. “That’s when I was like, Yep, that’s what I want to do; that’s how I want to look . And, even though I was heavier, I worked out on the free weights and nobody ever
     questioned it or made me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes, someone would ask me, and
     I’d say, ‘I want to be a bodybuilder,’ and there I was at 220 pounds, and they would
     just say, ‘Okay, good for you.’ ”
    Amy worked out at four thirty in the morning before heading to the office. She always
     saw a fellow early bird there named Allen Thompson, who worked at the Pentagon. They
     shared