Motivational Spotlight: How Challenge Participant Sarah Maschke Lost 136 Pounds

Sarah Maschke (username iyamamaschke) knew exactly how to be healthy. “At age 18 I was a bodybuilder, so I’d always known what I should be doing and what I should be eating but I had completely let myself go,” she says, “knowing and doing are two completely different things.”

Maschke let herself go until she reached the point where her body had stopped functioning how it was supposed to. It hurt to walk and she felt terrible all the time. “I got up to 302 pounds, and was just disgusted in myself. I reached rock bottom and in October 2004, I decided to finally do something about it,” she says.

Examining the Reasons

“My starting point was that I had to sit down and really look at what I was doing,” says Maschke. She knew that her eating was emotional (chocolate was her downfall) and that she ate mostly because she was alone all the time looking after her 3 young children. “My husband was working away all the time, I was very lonely and all I would do was eat,” she says.

Knowing that her eating habits had to change, Maschke struggled to get her cravings under control. “I started eating lower carbs, cutting out breads and pastas because someone had told me I should try the South Beach Diet. That was the first diet I tried and it worked really well,” she says.

Maschke walked on her treadmill, which was the only way she could get any exercise having 3 little ones in the house (her youngest was just 4 months old when she started her journey). Initially, she was only able to walk for 10 minutes at a time because of the pain in her feet, but was able to walk more as she started to see the results of her hard work. Eventually Maschke was jogging on the treadmill and incorporating weights into her home routine.

Taking it off

Maschke kept at her plan for 18 months and in that time lost 100 pounds. “Then I stalled out for a long time, I just didn’t want to do it anymore,” she says. However, over the next 3 years, she was able to keep that 100 pounds off.

“I was looking for something to push myself farther, then this X-Weighted Challenge came about,” says Maschke, who had been a fan of the show for years and had applied to be a participant but unfortunately didn’t live close enough to where the show was being filmed.

“I always watch the show. I love X-Weighted because you get to see the person on TV going through the same trials and tribulations that you are going through, that is why watching it motivates me,” she says.

Since joining the Challenge, Maschke has got back on track with her weight-loss and managed to lose a further 36 pounds. She is actively participating in the community groups and has made a real life friend from those groups. “Doing this enables me to challenge myself more and it just came around at the right time. The prizes also motivate me,” she admits.

Staying Motivated

Maschke knows that she has already come so far. She has had friends not recognize her after losing so much weight. “It feels good when they don’t recognize me. I feel amazing,” she says, “right now, I’m in the best shape that I’ve ever been. I just bought myself a running watch and saw that I was running a 9-minute mile!”

Although her weight loss was pretty steady in the 18 months where she lost that 100 pounds, Maschke says that the most she ever lost was 15 pounds in one month, and on average it was between 6 and 8 pounds a month. “There were lots of times where I was just sitting there and I was just so frustrated thinking “Well, what am I doing wrong? Why aren’t I losing weight?” and then all of a sudden I’d lose 2 pounds. My weight fluctuated all the time,” she says.

Maschke says that in order to succeed, you can’t let the mistakes you make sabotage your efforts. “Don’t ever give up. A lot of people start out trying but they give in when they mess up, they throw in the towel. I screwed up lots too with my eating and stuff, but I just never gave up,” she says, “you just have to keep pushing yourself to do your very best. It has taken me a long time to lose this weight, but you can’t do it in a day or a month.”