05/22/2003

Meg Farris / WWL-TV Medical Reporter

Katherin Thomas says she got so big she did not allow pictures of herself at her heaviest - 270 pounds. She tried every supplement, diet book, support group and liquid meal replacement. She even tried smoking to lose weight.

But Thomas yo-yoed between a size 22 and 18. Then her husband of 31 years, Frank, who was also her high school sweetheart, died at 50. He succumbed to a long, painful battle with lung cancer that she attributes to the result of cigarettes and asbestos exposure from being a welder.

“I would go through the crying spells,” she recalls. “I would go through the screaming spells when I would get in my closet so my son wouldn't hear me scream out, put a pillow over my mouth and just scream until I couldn't scream any more.”

WWL-TV Katherin Thomas sweats from her rigorous workout

“I was tired of crying. I started walking, walking, walking and the more I walked, and I started coming out of the dark clouds.”

At first she just walked about a mile and a half. Then, as her body started to condition, she wanted more. That turned into six miles - four miles of running with two miles of walking. The exercise took away some of her very hearty appetite, and she started eating better. Ninety pounds disappeared – and so did her heavy heart.

WWL-TV Katherin didn't allow pictures of herself at her heaviest - 270 pounds

As time passed, Katherin realized something on her own that studies have proven - you can't get lean and stay thin long-term without building muscle.

She worried about the excess skin that hung from her body from years of being overweight.

In January she joined a gym, and by watching others figured how to use the weightlifting equipment. She got stronger and her body changed.

Katherin has also made the body, mind, spirit connection, and she's had an epiphany.

“I was really heavy,” she says. “I was heavy and what I mean by that is I was fat. You know, 20's, big and along with that weight I had weight that was a heavy heart, and a heavy mind.”

She works full-time as a private care nurse, but still never misses her workout, which begins at 4:30 in the morning. She eats healthful meals and every day prays to not overeat, not to give in to a food addiction.

And she says she hears her husband's spirit guide her to stay in good health for her family until she joins him.

“To be 53 years old and a grandmother and be medication free with all the sickness and health problems in my family high blood pressure diabetes heart attacks…”