By Dan Courtney, NIFS Correspondent

If you look in the dictionary under the word “determination,” the name Susan Carmichael should flash like a neon light.

“If I only had 10 people that worked as hard as she did,” said National Institute for Fitness and Sport fitness instructor Rob Miller. “Her motivation is inspiring to me.”

Carmichael exercises five times a week at the One America Tower Fitness Center operated by NIFS. She works her arm muscles. She works her leg muscles. She works her heart muscles. She does Tae-Bo. But there is one problem: The weight is just not coming off.

The 48-year-old faces a tough dilemma. For the past two years she has suffered from sleep apnea, a sleeping disorder that disallows a full night’s rest. According to Carmichael, she wakes up a minimum of eight times a night, and those are the times she is aware of.

“My doctor tells me I won’t get a good night’s sleep until I lose the weight, and trainers tell me I won’t lose the weight until I get a good night’s sleep,” said Carmichael, a senior programmer analyst for AUL. “That is the problem I face.”

“For proper muscle building, you have to get six to eight good hours of sleep,” added Miller.

Being caught between the proverbial “rock and a hard place” of working hard and not losing weight has not stopped Carmichael from pushing herself to the fullest at NIFS. Miller said he has seen the improvement in areas outside the weight-loss category.

“She is a lot stronger and has more muscular endurance,” added Miller enthusiastically. “In just three weeks, Susan went from five minutes on the elliptical machine up to 45 minutes.”

Carmichael’s routine includes step aerobics on Monday, circuit training on Tuesday, Tae-Bo on Wednesday, the elliptical workout on Thursday and a complete weight circuit of the body parts on Friday. She has won the incentive program for the most total minutes worked out in a month.

“I’ve had people tell me that ‘if I worked as hard as you I would need to take a nap’,” adds Carmichael with a grin.

“I really figured with her jump in workouts from once to five times a week 10 months ago, we would have seen the huge weight loss,” said Miller. “But then we started seeing the articles on sleep apnea and realized what a difference [problem] that was making in people’s daily lives. We thought we could beat it.”

The continual hard work has paid off for Carmichael, albeit slowly. She has lost five pounds working out at NIFS, which is more encouraging than when she was a member of Weight Watchers where she would lose 10 pounds and put it back on.

“I feel so much better after I work out,” she says with a smile.

More Stories