Weight loss an inspiration for personal trainer
Windsor woman says self-love was key to overcoming obstacles to better health
It’s been three years since Amanda Garant started her weight-loss journey and life has not slowed down.
“I feel unstoppable,” she said. “I’m happy and finally feel like I’m living the way I’m supposed to.” The 33-year old Windsor woman was thrown into the weight-loss spotlight in October 2016 when she was featured on the cover of Women’s World after an editor spotted her personal blog. The weeks that followed were a whirlwind for Garant, with an outpouring of support from people eager to learn more about her weightloss story. “Overnight, I became a poster child for natural weight loss and being able to share my story,” she said. “I was inundated with messages from people. I became part of this niche group and was able to show people this is what a healthy, fit life looks like.”
Garant was determined to use the spotlight and put it to good use. She studied and became a personal trainer with her focus on severely overweight and obese clients. She’s holding her first Windsor FitFest on April 14-15 at the Serbian Centre. The two-day event will feature 46 different vendors in all areas of health, fitness and wellness under one roof. One of the vendors, Universal Fitness, will be hosting Rob Fletcher, a martial arts master who’ll be promoting Canada’s Next Best Trainer.
“I had people asking me where I ate, where I worked out,” Garant said with a laugh. “So I just approached some of the places I frequented and asked them if they would be interested in being part of a festival. And this thing just took off.”
For Garant, weight had been an issue for almost 20 years. By the time she was 30 years old, she tipped the scales at close to 300 pounds. She knew food and binge eating, in particular, was an issue. She had tried many times to get motivated to lose the weight but she always fell short. “I tried to hate myself and be so disgusted with myself because that’s where I thought my weightloss journey needed to start, but none of it took,” she said. She had zero confidence and little self-respect and felt so uncomfortable in her own body that when a camera came out to take pictures she would just blend into the background.
“You can’t hate yourself into a healthy body, or out of guilt or self-loathing,” she said. “Real change has to come from a place of self-love and I had to love myself and value myself enough at 300 pounds to decide that I was worth at that point to make a change and that was the only way it was going to work.”
That defining moment happened on her honeymoon a few years ago in the Caribbean. She was on an excursion with her thenhusband and they got off a boat to explore the reef.
“There was a five-rung ladder to get back up,” she said.
“I knew when we jumped down that I wouldn’t be able to get back up. It was so embarrassing it took three guys to hoist me back up in front of the whole excursion group. I was so mortified and it was at that moment that I thought I just want to be stronger.” Garant admits there’s no secret way to lose weight, just the tried and true method of eating healthy, portion control and exercise. Looking back, Garant always put herself on the back burner and felt she wasn’t important enough to warrant changes.
“My reflection has never looked like it does now,” she said. “People joke and say they want to look like they did in high school, I’m like I look like I did in Grade 6, that’s how far back I had to go.”
For Garant, her weight-loss journey is a big part of her life. Although she dropped the weight she wanted, maintaining can be just as big a challenge. “People say, ‘Oh, it’s easy for you now,’ ” she said.
“They think you don’t crave that stuff anymore, but I do. It’s almost like an addiction and you have to constantly manage it. But I like challenges.”
I tried to hate myself ... because that’s where I thought my weight-loss journey needed to start, but none of it took.