Georgia single mom loses 150 pounds in fitness journey she calls 'a love letter to myself'

ATLANTA - Shemeeka Johnson is as strong as she has ever been and has fallen in love with what her body can do.

"I feel great," Johnson says.  "It's really cool to see what my body is able to accomplish."

The 32-year-old Amazon PR manager's transformation began the summer of 2019, with the scale at 326 pounds.

"I took my son David on a trip to Disney World, and I noticed how tired I was just walking around the park," she says.  "It got me thinking that maybe I needed to remove this barrier from my life, which was the weight."

But, first, she needed to find her motivation to stay on track, and not just for David, who was 5.

"But, also just really starting to fall in love with the person that I saw in the mirror again, and getting to know her a little bit better, and the things that drive her," Johnson says.  

She settled on two goals: to make better food choices, and exercise everyday.  

And, at first, things moved slowly.

"I will be honest, I was working out really hard, but I was still really enjoying the foods that I like," Johnson says.  "It wasn't until I began to really change my nutrition and lean into what I was putting in my body, I call it 'body fuels' in my book, what fuels I was putting into my body, that things really started to shift."

She started with water.

"I replaced all the drinks, the juices and sugary drinks with water," she says. "I was still eating what I wanted, but I was only drinking water. Then, I slowly started replacing fried food with baked or grilled, and making smarter nutrition choices along the way. That sped things up tremendously."

She focused on losing 5 pounds at a time.

"When I got on the scale, and I started seeing that first 5, 10, and 15 come off, that's when I got excited," she says.

Running was another challenge,

"I wasn't able to jog for more than about 60 seconds without stopping and panting, out of breath," Johnson says.  "Taking morning runs through the neighborhood really helped me kind of get over that hurdle."

She also tried to stop fixating on the scale.

"I would just up every morning to see if the workout the day before had worked, and I just didn't want to become a prisoner to the scale," Johnson says.  "So, I began to track my measurements in other ways:  how do I feel today?  What is my endurance like after this workout? I have control over how I look.   I have control over how I feel, and my activity level."

When she lost the first 100 pounds, Johnson set out to write a book to document her experience.

"I felt like this is something different," she says.  "So, 'Inner Animal' really talks about how I was able to tap into my internal motivation that helped push me through my fitness journey."

Johnson has lost 150 pounds, and is now a certified personal trainer and nutritional coach.

David, her inspiration, is now 8.

"I've literally transformed before his eyes," she says.  "And, it's funny because I showed him a picture of me from 2019, and he was, like, 'Who's that?'  And I was, like, 'Are you kidding me?'  He barely recognized me."

Shemeeka feels like she is now in control of her story.

"And it all starts with a decision one day, whether it's in the middle of a theme park or just sitting at your home," Johnson says.  "You can wake up and decide to do something about it.   My fitness journey is my love letter to myself.  It's a way that I practice self-care every single morning when I wake up, and I pour into this one body that I was blessed with."