by Annette Miller, from CNN on Thursday, September 12, 2013
(CNN) — In March 2010 I found out my twin sister, Bobbette, needed a kidney transplant. With a body mass index of well over 50, I was ruled out as a donor.
At that moment, I decided I would get healthy once she got healthy. I decided that my weight would never again keep me from doing something I wanted.
Bobbette got a new kidney in June and was finally getting back on her feet in September.
Then it was my turn.
I weighed 385 pounds — and no, it wasn’t because I like to eat. I grew up as a fat kid, and food was my coping mechanism.
In September 2011, I started walking. By the end of the year, I started making better food choices. In January 2012, I joined my local Y, where I started taking water classes such as H²O cardio and hydrorider.
In June 2012 I was down to 330 pounds. One of my best friends, Anje, volunteered to help me lose even more weight. She figured out quickly that I loved sports; more than anything I wanted to be an athlete. She came up with a plan for us to approach my weight loss in phases. At the end of each phase, I would do some athletic feat.
At the end of phase one, I would run a 5K without stopping. Phase two was a half marathon. She suggested a triathlon for phase three; I laughed in her face and told her she was crazy.
Fate had another plan. One morning I heard Jeff Dauler on “The Bert Show” recount the biggest lesson he had learned from being part of the CNN Fit Nation 2012 team. That lesson was “In times of transition, keep moving forward. It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you keep going forward.”
That year was a time of transition for me and to “keep moving forward,” I knew I had to be part of the 2013 CNN Fit Nation team.