Now & Then: Karen Dorn

Gaining weight does not normally happen overnight—it tends to creep on us a few pounds a year. Before we know it, we hardly recognize ourselves, and the size of jeans that we once thought was big is now looking pretty small. This was the case for Karen Dorn.

Photo courtesy of Karen Dorn

Although Dorn, fifty-nine, was active and never overweight when she was young, she never really exercised. “I tried to do some running once,” she says. “But I’d get a couple of blocks, and I was shot; it didn’t feel good.”

Lack of exercise combined with what she describes as lack of self-control around good food caused the pounds to edge on Dorn’s five-foot-nine-inch frame. She tried different dieting programs, which helped her to lose a few of the pounds (at her heaviest, she weighed 234), but nothing really helped her get all of the weight off. Finally, in January 2007, Dorn hit the wall at 212 pounds. “Being a school nurse, I was concerned seeing kids in the school systems becoming bigger and heavier,” she says. “Being seen as a role model, I couldn’t talk to people about weight if I wasn’t doing something myself.”

With a little prodding from her sister-in-law, Dorn joined Calhoun Beach Club and began walking on the treadmill. “I realized how little endurance I had,” she says. “I couldn’t walk fast like I used to.” But although she added exercise to her life, Dorn still wasn’t seeing her weight change. Though the club offered two free training sessions to new members, “I think I thought of every excuse in the book not to go in [for the training session],” she says. “I am of the generation where we didn’t learn about strength training.”

But when Dorn checked her blood pressure at a local grocery store, the high reading pushed her over the edge. “Things were really out of control. I had to get back and take charge of a lot of aspects of my life that I wasn’t addressing, make myself a priority. I wanted my good health back and to feel better.”

Dorn met with Anthony Schulzetenberg for an initial assessment. “He told me at that point was that I had approximately ninety pounds of fat on my body,” she says. “I was absolutely shocked. I said, ‘I think I’ll go home and have a glass of water and a leaf of spinach.’”

Photo courtesy of Karen Dorn

Anthony met with Dorn two days a week for a strength-training regimen, and she supplemented with forty-five to sixty minutes of cardio four days a week. Dorn also started to eat differently. “One of the big things was identifying what my body needed versus what I wanted,” she says. “I began to eat high-quality foods, things that weren’t really processed and really made myself read labels, knowing what a portion size was—an absolutely huge thing.”

When she first began training in January 2007, Dorn hoped to lose twenty pounds. “I was thinking, ‘OK, I spent years putting on weight. If I could get twenty pounds off, that would be great.’ I wanted to get under 200 pounds.” Instead, by the end of July she lost fifty pounds, and in October, she was down sixty-eight pounds to 144.

Besides the obvious health benefits (her blood pressure is down thirty-five points) and shopping benefits (she went from a size twenty to a size six or four, depending on the brand), Dorn says one of the best parts of losing the weight was gaining control of her life. “I have a higher level of self-confidence and self-respect,” she says. “And overall, I am a happier and more positive person.”

Along with her newfound assurance, Dorn also had some nice surprises from co-workers. “Some of the teachers at the schools didn’t even recognize me,” she says. “One day, a teacher said, ‘You have the figure of a teenager.’ I said, ‘Oh my god, you made my day.’”

Tips Clubbin’ “When you workout and do cardio at a club, you are surrounding yourself with a healthy culture,” Dorn says. “You start associating yourself with people who have made a commitment to their health.” Inside Out “Use a romaine leaf for the outside of your sandwich or wrap instead of bread,” she says. “This works for a taco/fajita, too.” This will cut down your carbohydrate intake and up your vegetable consumption. Bottoms Up “Drink a full glass of water first when you think you are hungry and before any meal,” Dorn says. “Often water is what you body wants, not necessarily food.” Get a Trainer “Although diet played a big role, for me training with Anthony was a big part of the success." Trainers not only show you how to incorporate strength training and cardio into your routine, they also offer encouragement and support.