One of the reasons I started my website is that I wanted a place for women to come together and dream. We women need to know that we don't have to hang on to an old dream that has stopped nurturing us -- that there is always time to start a new dream. This week's story is about a woman who began to worry about her health when her weight spiraled out of control. The opportunity to turn her life around came through an unlikely source -- a company bonding activity. The experience challenged Donna to conquer a Tough Mudder and in the process, drop 120 pounds. What an accomplishment! -- Marlo, MarloThomas.com[1]
By Lori Weiss
Donna Rees grew up feeling like a thin person trapped inside a fat person’s body. From the time she was a child, she struggled with her weight, yet she insisted on squeezing into clothes two sizes too small -- doing her best to camouflage the tight fit, so she could be a little bit like the other girls. But when it came to physical activity, the best she could do was watch her friends and family do all the things she never thought she could.
“I was never very good at gym,” Donna recalled. “I never tried out for any teams. I just couldn’t get my body to do the things I wanted it to do. The only A I ever got in gym was in volleyball. I think my gym teacher was fascinated by how uncoordinated I was, but that I could still get the ball over the net. My brothers went hiking and camping, and I loved the idea of being outside, but I felt trapped inside my house. I just couldn’t keep up with them.”
It was one of those things that no one discussed -- a secret that was right there out in the open, but somehow Donna lived with it silently.
“I remember going on vacation with friends of our family,” she continued, “and I was very self conscious ordering food, so I ordered less than I would normally eat. One of the fathers said, ‘That’s not enough for you -- you’re a hefty girl, you need more than that.’ I remember crying that night, thinking I must be this horrible thing and he knows it.”
It was a thought that would live in Donna’s mind until her 50s, as her weight climbed to 270 pounds.
“Every year I set a New Year’s resolution, promising myself that I’d lose the weight. I’d fantasize of being in my 50s and being in really great shape. But since I started making that resolution in my 30s, I figured I had lots of time.”
It wasn’t as if life didn’t go on. Donna married her high school sweetheart and built a successful career in human resources. But when she found herself divorced and living alone, she began to worry about her health -- noticing that even climbing the stairs to do laundry was becoming a challenge.
“I had started seeing a new doctor,” Donna said, “and he was really the first one to ever bring up my weight. He wanted to put me on blood pressure medication. My cholesterol was high. I was pre-diabetic. He was concerned about sleep apnea. And that’s when it hit me -- that I had to do something.”
“I didn’t want to live my life that way, on all kinds of medications. I didn’t want to become dependent on other people helping me as I aged. So I said, ‘Give me 6 months. If I haven’t made progress in 6 months, I’ll do whatever you say.’”
But the real challenge came weeks later -- in the one place Donna felt like her weight never got in her way -- at work.
“The president of our company had been talking about doing a team building event for a number of years. He felt like we needed to do something to bond. So he asked our new Vice President of Sales and Marketing to come back to him with some ideas and one of our colleagues suggested a Tough Mudder.”
The Tough Mudder he had in mind was a 10 mile course with 25 obstacles that would take the company team up a 3,586 foot muddy mountain, over twelve foot walls and through icy waters. And as the head of human resources, it was Donna’s job to get her co-workers on board.
“When the managers heard about it,” Donna laughed, “most of them came to me and asked why we couldn’t do something a little less crazy the first time? But the president said, ‘We all sell ourselves short. We think we’re capable of so much less than we are. I think we need to prove that we’re capable of doing this.’ That’s what he wanted to bring to the company. He wanted people to realize they’re capable of more.”
“My doctor wanted to write me a note. He actually wanted me to convince them all not to do it. He thought it was just a bunch of injuries waiting to happen. He’d been invited to participate in one himself and said 'no' because he couldn’t take the risk of getting hurt.”
But the team was moving forward and while Donna didn’t really believe that she could make it up that muddy mountain, she was determined to at least train with her co-workers. So she found a gym where they worked out together for three months and she pushed herself even harder. While her co-workers were there twice a week, she was there four. And she found a weight loss group that met just across the street, where she could drop into meetings as often as she liked and learn how to cook the foods she enjoyed in a healthier fashion.
By the time the Tough Mudder was scheduled to take place, Donna had shed 40 pounds and she was doing things she never dreamed of -- including a 10 mile training run. And that’s when she decided that this was a team she could finally be a part of.
“We all drove up to Mt. Snow in Vermont on Saturday night,” Donna remembered. “The guys were cooking dinner and some of us went up to the mountain to see the end of that day’s competition. I took one look at that mountain and said, ‘No frickin’ way -- this is not going to happen. I had no clue what I was thinking when I decided I could do this.”
But with the support of her co-workers, Donna was there at the starting line. With her heart “pounding out of her chest” she took her first muddy steps, with two friends holding on tight to be sure she didn’t slip. But as she reached the foot of the mountain, she panicked and that’s when the head of sales and marketing went to work -- and sold her on herself.
“He pulled me aside and said, “Just walk with me for a minute. You’ve been training. You’ve got this. Don’t look up. Just take this one step at a time. There are platforms along the way, we can stop whenever you want. Before I knew it, we were a quarter of the way up the mountain and I realized maybe I can do this.”
But it wasn’t just the mountain, there were still the obstacles the team had to overcome -- including a section of barbed wire only 16 inches above the muddy ground that participants had to crawl under.
“You’re allowed to walk around any obstacle you can’t do,” Donna explained, “and there were some, like a pool of ice they wanted us to swim through, that I opted out of, but when I made it under that barbed wire, I was giddy -- wet and cold and muddy -- but giddy.”
And finally, two hours in, Donna reached the top of the mountain. That’s when she felt someone tap her on the shoulder. It was her doctor. His friends had invited him again and knowing that his dedicated patient was going to participate, he realized he couldn’t say no. Donna had become her doctor’s inspiration.
Together, everyone on the team made it to the finish line. But for Donna, that race was just the start. She continued on her weight loss journey and began setting fitness goals. She built her strength and endurance and challenged herself to do something she’d always wanted to do -- run with her brother. And two months later, she joined him for a 10K race.
“I couldn’t quite keep up with my brother, but when he finished the race, he walked back a mile to meet me and then he took pictures as I crossed the finish line. You get a t-shirt at the end of the race. Up until then I’d been wearing triple X’s. That t-shirt was my very first large.”
Today, just twenty months since Donna began her journey, she’s gone from a size 24 to a 10. She’s down to 150 pounds and there’s no need for her to take any of the medications her doctor initially prescribed. She’s even done a second Tough Mudder, this time not only with her co-workers -- but with her family. And her next goal: a triathlon.
“I haven’t been on a bicycle in 25 years,” Donna said with a smile, “and I’m not a strong swimmer. But I figure there’s no place to go but up! I want to do things that were never in my wildest dreams -- to keep proving to myself that I’m alive and that I can accomplish things. I have so much to look forward to now. I’m fearless, fabulous and 56. And my 60s are going to be seriously sexy!”
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