Ten Years Later Read Online Free PDF

an interest in health and fitness, and eventually began dating.
    “Here was this person who was strong, and driven, and passionate about everything,”
     says Allen. “She was passionate about the way shecooks, and passionate about her dogs, passionate about her kids, and I liked that.”
    When her weight dropped to two hundred pounds, Amy studied for and received certification
     as a personal trainer. She added to that a certification in nutrition. More and more,
     Amy realized her interest and passion lay in sharing all she’d learned about domestic
     violence and overall health. Amy quit her job at the Gates Foundation and established
     her own health and fitness company. In November 2009, she and Allen competed in an
     international fitness competition in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Over four years, she
     had lost an astounding 325 pounds.
    “I actually took a picture on my phone,” she says. “I weighed in at that competition
     at one-sixty-nine.”
    Weight at 2009 FAME International Championships.
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. (Courtesy of Amy Barnes)
    (In case you’re wondering, I asked Amy why she doesn’t have issues with excess skin,
     which can be a side effect from extensive weight loss. She says she does have extra
     skin, but in bodybuilding photos,she wears sheer pants or a wrap to cover her legs and belly area. She says there are
     other factors that reduced her extra-skin issue.
    “For me, it’s because of good genetics. Secondly, I was in my early to midthirties
     when I was at my heaviest. Thirdly, it’s because I lost the weight slowly, and because
     I lifted weights. Even when I was heavy, I lifted weights the whole time.”)
    In 2009, Amy also became a contractor with the Department of Labor and began working
     with kids enrolled in the Job Corps program. Her role was to head up the Health and
     Wellness program, but it was also a chance for Amy to encourage underprivileged kids
     and to share with them what she’d learned by living through domestic violence.
    “The weight loss to me is the most secondary part of my life,” she says, “in comparison
     to everything else my kids and I have been through.”
    Allen has heard some but not all of what Amy endured during her years with Robert.
     He says she takes responsibility for her role in the situation and has been extremely
     open about the rawness of the abuse.
    “It’s hard. It makes me angry, but at the same time, it puts the day-to-day stuff
     into perspective. I thought I had baggage; I don’t have any baggage. I thought I had some drama; I haven’t been through anything,” he says. “It changes your outlook
     on life. The guys at work ask me all the time, ‘Why are you so, like, ‘It’s getting
     better, just take baby steps,’ and I just say, ‘Because I live with somebody who has
     survived the unimaginable, and then figured out a way to get her kids back, and raised
     two kids who are great young men.’ It’s humbling.”
    Amy exposes the Job Corps kids she works with to opportunities in the fitness industry
     and encourages them to excel. Many have neglectful parents and live in broken homes.
    “To them, domestic violence is normal. I see these kids and I just want to rescue
     every single one of them. These kids have never had anybody believe in them. It’s
     sad, because that’s all they know; they wouldn’t know a healthy relationship if it
     bit ’em in the ass. My kids could have turned out like these Job Corps kids, but they
     didn’t. They are straight-A students; they are part of the football team. Everything
     they’ve been through has somehow made them better kids, and better human beings, and
     more accepting of people and adversity. They get being poor, they get not having anything,
     they get being teased because you’re fat or you’re a mixed race. The adversity could
     have turned them to drugs and to being hoodlums, but they have turned out to be law-abiding
     citizens and the coolest kids you’ll