It’s amazing what people can do when they believe they can. And sometimes it takes someone else’s belief in the them to spur them on to accomplish their goals.
That’s what happened for Dani Keith-Marchment. Like so many women, she struggled with her weight for more than a decade. Each year she’d put on a little more until she found herself over 200 pounds.
After having a baby in 2011, she topped out at 247 pounds. Knowing she needed to get control of her weight, she joined the Macomb YMCA with a friend in June of that year and lost 20 pounds working out on her own.
Then she met trainer Dion Kimbrough. She started taking small group classes with him, and then began 1:1 sessions. The pounds started to peel off — and more importantly, her mindset began to change right along with her body. “I found that I was physically & mentally capable of more than I ever gave myself credit for,” she says. She ran her first 5K in June, which she never thought she could or would do, and now has committed to training for a half marathon.
“I have learned and still continue to learn so many things from Dion and learn things about myself as well,” Dani says. “He always has me focused on what my next goal is all of the time, which helps me stay on track.”
She’s lost 75 pounds since December of last year, for a total of 95 pounds. She credits Dion and her friend, Crystal, who convinced her to join the Y, for their help and inspiration.
And now, she wants to share her own story to inspire others. “I look and feel like an entirely different person. I feel as though this weight loss has opened up so many more opportunities for me,” she says.