Mariner Square Athletic Club - Experience a Club, Belong to a Community - Serving the Bay Area, Alameda, Oakland

Marie Giambroni had driven by Mariner Square Athletic Club hundreds of times on her way from Oakland to Alameda for work and, for a year and a half, often thought of joining.

After turning 40 this past February, she finally decided to take charge of her health and lose the extra weight that had been piling on for more than two decades. Now, she's 107 pounds lighter and still counting -- and she was gearing up to run her first 5-kilometer race in October after walking the same event in Livermore last year.

She works with personal trainer Sarah New two times a week before work, meaning she gets started at 5:30 a.m. most mornings.

"It's not a choice anymore, it's something I have to do," said Giambroni, an Oakland native. "I'm weighing what I weighed after my first year of college."

Giambroni's friend was headed to Hawaii on vacation and mentioned how she planned to run on the beach every day during her trip. Giambroni thought she was a little crazy, but then took on a challenge of her own: She would work out at the gym every day for the 12 days her friend was gone. After looking at photos from her 40th birthday, she knew it was time for a serious lifestyle change.

"I was thinking I would never do it. I had always said I'd do it and I never did it," she recalled. "That's what started it. I'm still in the transformation period. It's been a long and tedious kind of thing but it's been well worth it. I still feel like I have a long way to go. I have a nutritionist. I have a personal trainer. I had a physical therapist for a while for a foot injury. I have more people than I know what to do with to help me train and get healthy. My life is night and day."

Giambroni, who opts not to give her before weight or name an exact target weight for where she hopes one day to be, figures she will be working to lose weight for another year to eventually get down more than 200 pounds.

For now, her support team -- including New, her sister and her running partner -- are cheering for Giambroni each step of the way.

At the 6-month-mark, she had already dropped 95.8 pounds. That's when she decided to share that number with those close to her.

On August 22nd, they gathered with Giambroni in the downstairs studio with 95 pounds worth of weights in the middle of the room to signify what she'd taken off through her hard work.

"My friend Lisa started to cry. I have a picture of me holding the 95 pounds," Giambroni said. "I had bruises on my arms for a week but it was worth it."

The single Giambroni, an underwriting assistant for an insurance company, typically takes Sundays off from exercise but does something active every other day of the week.

"Once it hit 100 pounds, it was pretty strange," she said. "I don't know whose body this is. There is no designated weight right now. It's 'when I get healthy.' I'm trying not to get stuck on a number."

~ By Janie McCauley