Stephanie Pearson Got Serious About Her Lifestyle

There are many things in life that completely change a person: Graduating, marriage, birth of a child, and even your first car. Very few and far between are those that put major weight loss on that list. Those that cherish this change, are those that have been through it. That have slaved and sacrificed. That have shed blood, sweat, and tears to reach goal after goal after goal. I am one of those people.

As a young child I was diagnosed with severe internal tibia torsion and was made to wear leg braces. I could not run and playing was difficult. It was hard to keep up with the other children. After the doctor said my legs were straight enough to finally take them off, my body changed and I started gaining weight. I was then diagnosed with PTSD and depression. The weight began packing on to my small body. Not even reaching a double digit in age, I gave up on running and playing, I gave up on having friends, I gave up on myself. By the time I was in 6^th grade, I was already the weight of an overweight adult. All my life, obesity is all I have ever known.

January 14^th 2007 I was run over by a car, marking a further 7.5% loss of my right leg. Unable to move, my weight sky rocketed pushing me into morbid obesity. It had seemed to me that life just didn’t want me to use my legs. Weight loss was just an intangible pipe dream. I went into a downward spiral deeper in depression. It got to the point where I didn’t move if I didn’t have to. I reached a weight of 235 lbs, and was about to give up on life.

Out of nowhere a light at the end of the tunnel appeared, unbeknownst to me at first. Tina Kohs Jacobs, and employee at Complete Nutrition® started pestering me about entering their change your life contest. I wrote it off, it wasn’t something I wanted to do because it required movement. It required getting off the couch.

Then it happened. I caught my eye in the mirror and I looked at myself, truly looked at myself. I had THAT moment, my wake up call. I stood there and stared at myself. If it was a second, it was a lifetime. I looked into myself, into my soul and for the first time in my life, I stood up for myself. I’m not worthless and I’m going to prove it.

The moment I stepped in that Complete Nutrition® store, my life changed. I didn’t even have to win the contest to know that. The Complete Nutrition® employees have shown me more support, respect, and care than any doctor or nutritionist ever has. They were truly interested in helping me in every which way I needed. They made me feel like a person again. Because of their help I am now in the best shape I have ever been in, in my entire life. Because of them I was able to lose 75 lbs. Because of them, I have a life for the first time. Because of them, I started a revolution against the fat in my body, and I have triumphed.