Civilian employee with Navy drops 130 pounds

  • Published
  • By Nick DeCicco
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Kirsten Lim knows the harsh pain of silent judgment that can come with being overweight.

She's seen looks and felt casual cruelty from strangers. Once tipping the scale at 400 pounds, Lim was once asked by a flight attendant how she even got on a plane.
Such remarks took their toll and, in March 2010, she decided to change her circumstances.

Lim, Navy Resident Officer in Charge of Construction management assistant at Travis, began hitting the Travis Fitness Center and changing her diet in an effort to lose more 250 pounds.

Fast forward 27 months and Lim is now more than halfway to her goal, having shed 130 pounds.

Lim said it didn't register how tremendous a change that it was until her trainer, Diana Duterte, a contractor who works at the fitness center, put it in different terms.

"It's like a whole supermodel," she said with a smirk.

Dropping the mass equivalent of Kate Upton hasn't come without sacrifices.

Lim leaves her Oakland home at 3 a.m. on weekdays so she can visit the gym before going to work in the ROICC office. She exercises five to seven days a week, including going back to the gym on her lunch breaks. She tries to burn as many as 1,500 calories per day at the gym.

In the process, Lim has shrunk from a size 30 to a size 14.

"There's no such thing as sitting around anymore," she said.

To keep herself focused, she meets regularly with Duterte as well as a nutritionist. She's eating 1,200 calories a day in order to meet her goal.

Duterte said Lim has transformed and not just physically.

"Her whole attitude, everything is different," Duterte said. "I see the changes as clothes sizes go down."

The 24-year employee of the Department of Defense, Lim echoed Duterte's comments.
"Losing the weight has made me fearless," Lim said. "When I was 400 pounds, I was quiet. I used to let people walk all over me."

Duterte said many of her clients are focusing on improving a specific aspect of their bodies, but she is able to tailor Lim's workout to needs the focus on her entire body.

"You have to go with each person and know their capabilities and start from there," Duterte said. "She's really dedicated to lose the weight. She's an amazing person to work with."

Lim had the figure of a model when she was in high school, Duterte said.

"She's gone to both extremes," she said. "I think she's trying to find that medium where you're healthy and you're comfortable and you stay there."

She also does things with her kids on weekends, including hiking with her dog in the Oakland Hills and working out at the United States Coast Guard Base in Alameda.

She added a 15-foot trampoline in the backyard, giving her and her children an opportunity to workout and have fun together outdoors.

She said her five kids, ranging in age from 14 to 32, have seen a dramatic difference in her attitude.

"I don't think they like the energy I have now," she joked.

Gone are some of Lim's poor eating choices from the past. She admits she used to keep a tub of licorice in the car specifically to have a snack on the ride to and from work.

Lim's active lifestyle has even changed her outlook on an upcoming family vacation. A trip to Hawaii is set to include many activities she would not have previously pursued such as canoeing and snorkeling.

She credits her progress to her access to the facilities at Travis.

"I'm lucky to use the facilities on base," she said. "I don't know if I'd be as far as I am without it."