Four years ago, I started walking. My first walk took 20 minutes and I thought I was going to die of a heart attack during the uphill half. I kept walking almost every day for two years until I was walking and running 7-11K a day.

Then I went to college full time for a year and didn't get to walk much. That's when I packed on the pounds all of the way up to 230 from about 190.

When I started on Atkins in September of 2001, I had been walking again, every day, for about 4 months. Walks between 25-50 minutes. I knew that upping exercise would help me lose weight, so I scouted around and decided to join the local community Rec Center.

I love to swim so I started going to the pool. That lead to an aquasize class. I decided I wanted to try out the gym for variety. I've made a point of trying different things to see what I could find that I actually ENJOY doing. I had a program set up for the gym by one of the Fitness Trainers there and I worked it for a couple of months. Then I decided to try a Circuit Training class. I liked that too, but I wanted to get the most out of my workouts and I'd been following Natrushka's progress with BFL.

I read the book and loved the concepts and decided that it is something that I too am capable of doing. Today was the last day of Week 4 of Body for Life, for me and I'm loving it. I'm thrilled with my increased strength. I've gained almost 3 pounds of muscle, lost a net of 9 pounds of fat and reduced a total of 4.75 inches from my upper arms, waist, hips and thighs IN 28 DAYS! Amazing! Thrilling! I can hardly wait to see what I can accomplish in the next four weeks!