I’m 31 years old, married to a wonderful man for the past 7 years, have an 18-month old healthy and handsome boy, and work full-time as a Physical therapy asst. I have a great family and love my career, but since high school I’ve always been overweight on the BMI scale and have never loved my body shape. The month before I started at Precision Fitness, I had a doctor appointment and he cautioned me about my recent weight gain, and I was now “obese”.  So, the first month after doctor visit, I made a few changes. I lost a few pounds but it wasn’t nearly enough to make a dent into the 50lbs I needed to lose. The next month, my coworkers and I decided to do a weight loss challenge over the next 6 weeks and whoever won got the pot of $$. Dustin was offering a free two-week trial and I thought, well here’s my chance to kick it into gear for the last two weeks of the work contest. I came in second place with a total of about 10lbs lost. When I first started the trial at Precision Fitness, I really thought I was only going to do that 2 weeks in the large group setting and then take some of what I learned and go back and do it myself at home. But, after the initial 2 weeks of soreness wore off, I discovered I loved this setting, the accountability, the importance that was put on proper form, the change of pace and exercises, and best was Dustin’s motto of Work smarter, not harder! Also, I have learned so much about the right way to eat. I started this to lose weight. And, since joining, I have lost 30lbs, but to be honest that is the least thing I’m proud of. One of the biggest things I have learned this year is that weight is just one way of tracking progress. I feed my family healthier meals, and care about what ingredients we are putting in our bodies.  I am stronger, have more energy, feel happier, and better about myself. I have lost a lot of inches, went from a size 16/XL to a 10/M, and actually enjoy shopping for clothes now. I went on a 6 mile death-defying bike ride (ok, not really death-defying, but I hadn’t been on a bike in over 10 years and I was nervous about it)!  And, I’m most proud of competing in my first ever 5k run (and I didn’t stop once!!!) with an 11min/mile pace which I’m pumped about (remember me saying I hate running, well, it’s not so horrible now). Precision Fitness and the trainers make me feel like I belong and challenge me every workout to go harder and be better than the last one. So, thanks guys for the recognition, I sure have been trying hard. And, here’s to success in next year!