Having the Courage to Start –
Jennifer Kemp’s Story

By Pamela Granata

In our quest for the latest Guts to Glory article Sheri McMillan, of Northwest Personal Training & Fitness Education, told us she knew the perfect woman for our next issue. She said this woman has lost a great deal of weight and works out with a personal trainer at least three days a week. I arranged to meet with Jennifer Kemp at a local deli the next day. I recognized Jennifer immediately as she walked across the street even though no description was given of her. She walked with confidence. She had the look of someone who liked where she was in her life.

Jennifer was a couch potato all of her life until a year and a half ago. She was a non-exerciser and had been on every fad diet known. She tried the grapefruit diet, the popcorn diet, Slim Fast, Nutri-system, phen-phen, and much more. She even went so far in her quest to lose weight to try the Schick Weightloss Plan. This drastic measure was popular back in the seventies as a type of aversion therapy that used electrical shock. Of course Jennifer lost weight with these diets but gained every pound back and more, eventually weighing over 350 pounds.

Jennifer was not exercising or even walking. She had the type of jobs most women in America have, one that requires little or no physical exertion — a sedentary desk job. Luck was on her side when her company started a program that challenged the employees to start walking around the block and taking the stairs. The first month of the challenge Jennifer did not accumulate many points — she just wasn’t interested in exercising. However, several of her co-workers encouraged her to participate by offering extra incentive points. She decided to give it a try.

The hardest part for most us after making the decision to start exercising is to actually start. Jennifer, like many women who are about to start an exercise program, felt intimidated and self-conscience about her size. She started on the treadmill. She felt safe inside. She could walk 1/4 of a mile in 15 minutes. Soon she started seeing progress and felt encouraged. Her friends encouraged her to start working with a personal trainer. She was afraid that the trainer would ask her do things that she could not do. She would be vulnerable. She then met Rob Cloke from Northwest Personal Training & Fitness. Rob immediately put Jennifer at ease. She was given a questionnaire that all clients answer and she thought she would be extremely blunt and that would scare Rob off. It didn’t work. He gave her a complimentary appointment. He was encouraging and gave her the tools she could implement so that she could succeed. She then bought four training sessions with Rob, and she says it was the best money she ever spent. She started slowly and Rob never asked her to do anything that she could not do. She felt that he cared for her as a person. She was also asked to start a journal to log her eating habits as well as her training. She didn’t diet, but learned new lifestyle habits. She knew that only a very small percentage of people who diet to lose weight are successful at keeping it off. That scared her. When she hit a plateau, Rob modified her program. Six weeks into her training she participated in a fitness challenge. She now says that she was fitness challenged but joined anyway. Last year she joined a Mother’s Day walk with her 13-year-old daughter and was the last one to finish. That didn’t faze her though, and her trainers were waiting for her at the end.

Over the course of the last 18 months, Jennifer has changed from a couch potato to a gym rat. She has found true enjoyment in an active lifestyle. In addition to working out at the gym five days a week and training with her personal trainer three times a week, she has since hiked the Columbia Gorge with her trainers, gone snow-shoeing, rock-climbing, finished a March of Dimes Walkathon, and many 10k walks.

While training, Jennifer has discovered another passion: She loves boxing and martial arts and she is good at it. She is now more outgoing and has started dancing at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio. Since losing over 130 pounds, she finds that her clothes are fitting better, she has more self-confidence, and she doesn’t care what others say. Jennifer is an inspiration to her family and friends. Her family has always been in her corner, and she has found many additional supporters besides her co-workers and her trainers. Jennifer has found herself. She is very happy with her results. She is happy that she has no medical conditions. This is something she can and will do for the rest of her life. The money she spends on personal training is not an issue. She is willing to give up other things in exchange for her health. “Starting my exercise program was the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” says Jennifer, “but I’m the happiest I’ve ever been because I decided to try.”