Trail walking blasts 82 percent more fat

Kayla Rusch watched her 2-year-old son toddle around the floor and was suddenly filled with a new parenting fear: I won’t be able to keep up with him before too long, she realized. Or worse, he’ll be too embarrassed to go anywhere with me.

Kayla, who was a single mother, knew the weight that filled her size 4X shirts was slowing her down from being her best parenting self. “I didn’t enjoy doing anything,” she reveals. “I wasn’t happy.” So as her son worked on walking and potty training, Kayla began working on herself—improving her habits with the help of ShapeFit.com and walking on a treadmill for a few minutes at a time. “It got easier and easier,” says Kayla, who built up stamina to hike on nearby hills. “The trail was really pretty. There’s a river and a small waterfall.”

Those steps paid off! Kayla walked off 2 to 3 pounds per week for the first 2 months and traded her size 22 pants for size 6s. Though her goal was simply to dip below 180 on the scale, Kayla is now 30 pounds under her dream

weight! “There are times when I don’t believe it myself,” she raves. “Losing 100 pounds seemed impossible.”

Along the way, Kayla reaped other rewards. Her energy level and mood soared and she no longer needs her asthma inhaler. She even became a personal trainer. She beams, “If I am capable of losing the weight I have, I feel like I am capable of anything.”

Best of all, Kayla gets to be the mom who hikes, bikes and swims with her two kids. “I have more fun because I have confidence in myself!”