Transformation: Alissa Seidel Loses 80 Pounds and Runs Three Marathons

December 2005 to August 2007  |  18 months  |  @alissasueseidel

Alissa had been the big girl since she was nine and had quietly accepted it. She lost 80 pounds in eighteen months, then went and ran three marathons.

Where she started

Being the big girl was basically all Alissa knew, and who she thought she was. She started gaining weight at around nine. She was held back in second grade and still remembers the embarrassment of watching her class move on without her.

She loved sweets and says the signal that tells you to stop never really fired. Eating was comfort, and it felt good. She got picked on, sometimes by boys, sometimes by the group of girls she considered friends. At one birthday party they ganged up on her about her weight until she hid under a blanket and cried.

Being heavy as a teenager was not fun. She wanted the tank tops the other girls wore and wore giant sweatshirts instead. She tried track and ended up sitting in the hallway watching other people run laps, until she was asked for the uniform back. She hated gym class. She knew she was overweight and had more or less made peace with it.

The turning point

She coasted through school and flunked out of her first attempt at college, which put her back in her parents' basement. In her twenties, working at a bookstore, in a relationship going nowhere and around 225 pounds, she decided she needed something to do. Massage therapy came up while she was looking at careers. Her sister helped her find a school and she started in January 2005.

Once she got there she noticed she was one of very few overweight students, and once the hands-on part started she understood why. The work is physical. She quit smoking first.

By the end of the course she had decided she did not want to be an unhealthy therapist telling other people what to do with their bodies. She graduated in December 2005, got a YMCA membership, and has trained five to six days a week ever since.

What she changed

She started slowly. Ellipticals, 45 minutes at a time, thighs rubbing, watching her sister run on a treadmill in front of her.

Then her sister took her out for a run: jog thirty seconds, walk, jog, walk. She moved that onto the treadmill. She was not thinking about weights at all at that stage, she just wanted the weight off. She signed up for a 5k, ran a full mile for the first time in her life during the race, and nearly threw up at the finish.

She kept running, with her sister, who had run marathons, pulling her along. A 15k came next, and eventually her first marathon. That first eighteen months was almost entirely running, and it took her to about 140.

On food during the loss she cut out fatty foods and alcohol and ate a lot of salads, chicken and yogurt on a very low fat approach. Her maintenance now looks completely different. She loves food and does not deny herself, but she keeps it honest, tracking now and again to stay aware of how much she is actually eating. Vegetables, fruit and lean meat most of the time, with cake, doughnuts and wine no longer off limits.

Once the weight was off she started lifting, admittedly without much idea what she was doing. Now her training is evenly split between cardio and weights, hitting each body part at least once a week and doing something different for cardio every session.

The hardest part

Finding workout clothes that fit and were affordable, early on, was harder than people think. So was a sports bra that actually supported her.

People show you who they are, too. She was in a relationship at the time that was holding her back, and getting out of it freed her to become who she was working to be.

The real answer, though, is what came after. Losing the weight was the good part; keeping it off is the long haul. She still deals with the fear of going back to what she was, and with the frustration of having been there at all. There is a point where the loss stops and you keep training and eating well without the pants size dropping, and without that reward it gets much harder.

Where she is now

Being able to shop anywhere she wants. Three marathons run with her sister. Wearing a bikini in Jamaica and feeling good in it. And, she says, writing this and sharing the story at all.

Her mistakes: probably too much cardio, though she is at peace with the route she took, and spending $150 on a home workout program. What she learned is that she was never meant to be the fat girl, that she could literally teach herself to run, and that she could swap ingredients around rather than give up food she loved.

You will never know what you can be if you don't try. Alissa Seidel

Her advice if you are starting today

Take small steps, even if it takes over a year to get there. Get rid of the negative people who do not have your best interest in mind, and hold onto the ones who do.

She adds something worth sitting with: her weight loss is deeply personal and she has been uncomfortable sharing it, because most people she has met in recent years never knew she was ever heavy. She hopes people who have never struggled with weight can step back from judgment, because everyone has a story behind it.

Results vary. This customer's results are not typical and depend on individual effort, training, nutrition and consistency. Statements on this page describe one customer's personal experience and have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. No product mentioned is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.