Soldiers change lifestyles, live healthy - Mother loses 81 pounds

Courtesy Photo | Sgt. 1st Class Carolyn Allen, of Task Force 134 Logistics, weighed over 200 pounds after her pregnancy. She has since lost 81 pounds and, while deployed to Iraq, has created a board where people can post their successful weight loss stories to help motivate others trying to lose weight.  

08.27.2007

Courtesy Story

28th Public Affairs Detachment

by Army Sgt. Abel Trevino
28th Public Affairs Detachment

A large misconception about being in Iraq is that those who come here will easily shed weight. The reality is that it's hard work.

Sgt. 1st Class Carolyn Allen, assigned to Task Force 134 logistics, knows all too well about the difficulties of weight-loss. She has fought for two years to lose 81 pounds. In that time, she realized motivation was a large factor that could have kept her down. Now she is on a mission to motivate everyone to lose a few pounds by letting them know they are not alone.

Allen has posted weight-loss success stories on one of the gym walls. The stories are life changing. A major has lost 30 pounds and is in the best shape of his life and a warrant officer candidate has fought to lose 25 pounds as well of several others.

"I hit a low point because I didn't realize, after a pregnancy, how much weight I was going to gain," Allen said. "It's not something that you plan and it's not something that you have too much control over. I gained an enormous amount of weight and it changed my life."

More than anything, Allen was disappointed in herself.

"The first step to losing weight, for me, was that I had to reach a breaking point," she said. "I saw that I had a long way to go and I started to tell myself that I wasn't ever going to get back in shape even though I had all the education and knowledge to get in shape. When I looked in the mirror, it looked impossible."

Allen, a master fitness instructor, has a history of excellent physical fitness and expected better of herself.

"One of my job titles as a drill sergeant was as a fitness instructor," she said. "One of my primary jobs was getting Soldiers in shape who had failed their physical training tests."

It was the same Soldiers she had helped lose weight and pass PT tests who influenced and encouraged her to lose the weight she had gained.

"Being a drill sergeant, you're always going to run across some Soldiers you've trained," she said. "I had an encounter with (some former Soldiers) and they didn't say anything bad, but they gave me a look like they couldn't believe I'd let myself go."

Allen used the Army training she'd received to motivate her and lose weight.
"I remember how some Soldiers showed up to basic training and it took us eight weeks to get them in shape," she said. "The good part was on graduation day when their own parents couldn't recognize them. I told myself that if that Army program, field manual 21-20, worked for them, it could work for me."

It was a long battle for her to lose weight, and while she still continues to work out regularly, she is encouraging others to do the same.

"The board is used as a motivational tool to reach Soldiers," she said. "I believe when Soldiers see that someone else has (lost weight) and someone else has been in their shoes, they can then believe they can do it too."

• Date Taken: 08.27.2007
• Date Posted: 08.27.2007 03:22
• Story ID: 11984