By BRIDGET COOK
A CASEY wellness coach has helped local residents shed about 1000 kilos already and now she plans to expand her battle against the bulge.
Narre Warren South resident Karen Laurie started running 10-week, not-for-profit community weight loss challenges in Berwick about three years.
After much success, she now wants to expand her program in Cranbourne to help spread her fight over obesity.
Ms Laurie is a professional wellness coach, but runs the challenges on the side as a way of giving back to her community.
“I love helping people and this is my way of giving back to the community I live in,” she said.
The challenge runs for 10-weeks and involves one 45 minute information session and weigh-in once a week.
“They are essentially doing the work at home, but coming together with others to share their journey,” Ms Laurie said.
“Each week I teach them about different nutritional topics, from carbs, to counting calories and understanding labels.
“At the session, everyone weigh-ins and share their tips and advice with each other.
“It’s all about accountability. Knowing you have to report to someone weekly stops people from grabbing the sweets and gives them motivation to keep going.
“It also works as it’s a very supportive environment. Everyone is trying to do the same things, have the same goals to lose weight and they all understand and help each other.”
The challenge involves an entrance fee of $49, but Ms Laurie doesn’t make any money from the challenges, as some of that goes to cover the hire of the hall, tea and snacks at each session and a free wellness evaluation.
All left over money goes to prize money that’s given to the top three weight losers at the end of the challenge.
Berwick resident Irene Treacy said he has lost almost 60 kilos since joining the challenge last year.
“I started in February last year,” she said.
“Before that I was excessively overweight and was getting told by my doctor that I needed to lose weight.
“I was pre-diabetic and had gotten in bad habits.
“I cared, but I didn’t care enough to do anything about my weight.”
Ms Treacy said she saw a flyer for the challenge one day, and while she was a bit sceptical, she thought she’d give it a try.
“I’ve been steadily losing weight since then,” she said.
“Without this challenge, I wouldn’t have been able to get in the right frame of mine to lose the weight myself.
“It’s the supportive environment and the accountability that makes you more determined.”
To find out more about the challenges call Ms Laurie on 0425 733 469.
