Stashed in a desk drawer inside the office of her Aberdeen home, the secret identity of Jennifer Andrews is secure. The photograph still is on a disc alongside several other memory cards, as Andrews is reluctant to reveal the woman she used to be.
“I don’t even recognize the woman in that picture,” Andrews, 29, said. “It was frightening. I was like ‘You have to be kidding: I didn’t know I weighed that much.’”
Yet around Christmas of 2006, the mother of two young daughters and wife of nine years stared at the image of a woman who had no business wearing a bikini.
She was 5-foot-2 and weighed 230 pounds and needed to do something — anything — to get back to being the physically fit girl she was at Chesapeake High School.
“When I became a mom, I lived a very sedentary lifestyle,” Andrews said. “I was a carbohydrate junkie — cheesy mashed potatoes, breads, red velvet cake and carrot cake. You could say I was a sucker for cream cheese frosting. But I knew I had to stop.”
So she picked up the phone. It was a call that changed her life.
On New Years Day 2007, she called Tami Leasure, one of her closest friends who also wanted to lose weight. They made a pact: At the end of March, they were taking their husbands on a trip to Jamaica — and they wanted to look good in their bikinis.
For Andrews, it wasn’t easy. She struggled to push 4-year-old daughter Anastasia in a stroller for 20 minutes.
“I didn’t know I was that much out of shape,” she said. “When I called my husband to tell him I walked for 20 minutes, he said ‘all you walked for was 20 minutes?”
Andrews improved her conditioning and diet, as she substituted Splenda for sugar and low fat cooking oil because she still wanted to make her cake and be able to eat it, too.
It worked. When Andrews stepped foot on the sunny beaches, she was 35 pounds lighter.
“When we got back from our trip I told her I was going to sign up for a triathlon,” Leasure, a 34-year-old Severn resident said.
Andrews’ response?
“I told her I would, too, and I didn’t even know what a triathlon was — I had to look it up,” Andrews said. “When I found out what it was, I started shaking head to toe. I didn’t even know how to swim.”
For the next five months, Andrews woke up at 6:30 a.m. and drove to a Severna Park health club to train with Leasure for 2 1/2 hours as many as five times a week.
“She’s gone from having a completely inactive lifestyle to being an exercise freak,” said Leasure, who met Andrews when they worked at Target in Glen Burnie in 2001.
Andrews learned how to run, swim and ride a bike just because she gave Leasure her word she would complete the .62-mile swim, 17.5-mile bike ride and 3.4-mile run at last year’s Iron Girl Columbia Triathlon.
“That deal I made with Tami saved my life because I’d probably would have put the weight right back on when I got home on vacation,” Andrews said. “But the triathlon motivated me to lose another 85 pounds.”
Andrews completed the Columbia Triathlon in two hours, 41 minutes. Since crossing the finish line with Leasure at Centennial Park, she’s run a half-marathon and completed two more triathlons. When she toes the starting line at this morning’s Iron Girl , she’ll weigh 115 pounds —exactly half the woman she was fewer than two years ago.
“It’s been an amazing transformation,” said Tim Andrews, Jennifer’s husband. “When she finished her first triathlon it was a real emotional moment for me because I know how far she’s come.”
Tori Anne, Jennifer’s 9-year-old daughter, also noticed a big change in her mom.
“When I go to the gym I want to go on the water slide, but you have to pass a swimming test first,” Tori Anne said. “I thought of my mom when I did the test because she wasn’t a confident swimmer and did it anyway, and I passed the test.”
For Andrews, her journey from struggling to walk a few blocks to conquering a triathlon isn’t about how much weight she shed: it’s about regaining control of her life.
“Listen, I’m a normal person. I don’t have a personal chef or someone who does my shopping. I’m a mom with two children and a husband and just want to be a role model for them,” she said. “The Iron Girl gives you get a sense of empowerment that I can’t describe. All of the blood, sweat and tears is worth every second when you cross that finish line.”
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