Hi, I'm Pam.. and Here's My Story...   

I used to weight 280 pounds. There, I said it! Ugh! For years my husband never knew how much I weighed until a trip to the emergency room for me and all was revealed. I was soooo embarrassed! It’s not like he’d ever said anything to me about my ever-increasing weight other than “as long as your happy then I’m happy”. But the truth was I was extremely unhappy with the shape I’d let myself get into. How did I let myself get this overweight?

Not even overweight, I was morbidly obese! I had no energy. I could barely bend over to tie my shoes which left me breathless. I was sitting at a computer for nine hours a day with no movement except visits to the ladies room and the lunchroom. No wonder I’d put on the pounds! I’d come home from work, sit for a few minutes to rest and then fix dinner. I’d clean up after dinner and sit down again until it was time to go to bed. Then I’d get up in the morning and do it all over again! And because I was unhappy with my myself and my job I was stuffing my emotions down with every bite of unhealthy food I could get my hands on. That’s how you become a 280-pound, morbidly obese, very unhappy person! I knew something had to change. I was tired of being tired all the time. I’d know for years what I needed to do but was just too lazy! Look where that attitude had gotten me! I was now taking blood pressure medicine and I was barely in my 40s!

I told my husband that I was going to start a fitness and nutritional program and that he was coming along for the ride. Over the years he’d put on a few extra pounds. We immediately joined the local gym and I started reading about exercise and better eating habits. It was tough, very tough in the beginning but I knew with every exercise I did and every fatty food I turned down that I was helping myself to live a longer, healthier life! As the days turned into weeks my body started to change. When I started doing cardio on the elliptical machine I could only do a couple of minutes and then I’d need to stop to let myself rest and build up some more energy before I started again. I’d also noticed that the fat deposits on my body were hard and not moving much when I did my cardio workout. After a few weeks I started to look like a bowl of Jell-O because the fat was loosening up and I was jiggling all over.

I started to lose a few pounds and my clothes started to feel different. I had more energy also! After the first 20 pounds came off I felt like a totally different person! I couldn’t believe the difference! My friends and coworkers started to notice the change. I was reading more and more about fitness/nutrition and was relaying my findings to other people. As I did this I came to realize that I really enjoyed helping other people with their own diet and exercise struggles. It was at this time that I was lamenting, yet again, to my best friend about needing a change of job and career. She told me that the answer was staring me right in the face! “You should become a personal trainer!” The more I thought about it the more I felt I did have something to offer. I had struggled with my weight for years. I knew how frustrating it can be to lose a single pound much less 30, 50, 75!

I knew how difficult it was to change your eating habits! I wanted to help other people like me who knew they needed to do something to better their health but were embarrassed to even think of going to a gym. All those mirrors! All those hard bodies! All that spandex! So I enrolled in the Personal Fitness Trainer certification program through International Sports Sciences Association. After several weeks of reading a 735-page book I attended a two-day gym equipment instructional seminar and then passed a 20-hour final. I was now a certified personal trainer! How far I had come in a short period of time! I said goodbye to my old job and started BodyScape Fitness knowing that I was doing the right thing! Not only for myself but others just like me who needed someone to help them achieve a healthy lifestyle. I know that there are people out there who need help I just need to reach them. I want to say to them “I know what you’re going through and I’m here to help you, I’ve been through this before and together we can reach your goals”.

 How can I help you?