For one mom, learning to eat healthy and work out was a matter of life or death.

5-feet- 4 inches and 325 pounds Nicki Wring began her road to recovery in 2010 after a doctor told her she’d die by the time was 40. As a mother of three children she knew she had to change. Nicki was not morbidly obese she was “super obese.” Morbidly obese people have a Body Mass Index of over 40 and Nicki’s was over 50. The doctor said she was fat. She had always been big, but she was getting thick and on that day her blood pressure was 160/110. Nicki believed in her family and health enough to change her lifestyle. She started watching her caloric intake eating only 1,000 calories per day instead of her usual 5,000 plus. She started to walk daily and do WiFit until one day she ran for 10 seconds. Just 10 seconds, but she finished with tears in her eyes.

Along the way, Nicki met her now husband Marvell Wring, who was a trainer at the gym she attended. Marvell and Nicki opened their own gym in 2010. Nicki and Marvell train other people because they want overweight people to feel welcomed at a gym and want to teach them how to live a healthy lifestyle.

Many people who are super obese need by-pass surgery, but Nicki was of the one percent who wouldn’t need the surgery if she could change and so she did. ”I was on the verge of death,” she reemphasized. She has no thyroid as she has Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, where the body attacks thyroid tissue and it dies. Because of this Nicki believes she must work out. She trains daily, walk/running and lifting weights.

Nicki’s belief enabled her to lose 162 pounds and went from a size 30 to a size 8. She has undergone 10 skin removal surgeries to remove the 17 pounds of skin left from her size 30 self. In 2012 Nicki won the lifestyle change award from the American Heart Association. Nicki’s belief in herself has allowed her to help other women.

Story by Samantha Lough