Carrying More Than 185 Pounds on Her 5-foot, 7-inch Frame, Peggy Skaggs Had a Decision to Make.

Katy/Fulshear – Jan 3, 2007. . . . .Every morning for the previous three weeks, Skaggs had rolled out of bed to work out with her friend, who was reluctant to exercise alone. She'd never been one to actively exercise, and it showed.

"My first sit-up was the hardest part," she said. "It was humiliation. I thought, 'I truly can't do that one sit-up. This is ridiculous, if this is what my body came to.'"

On that particular morning back in 2002, Skaggs laid in bed, pondering whether to seize the opportunity to sleep a little longer - knowing her workout partner had to skip a morning run.

"That was my moment - I can sleep in and she won't call," Skaggs said. "It was that moment I said, 'Ya know, I can do this. I want to go and I want to go for me.'

"Everyone has to have their own private moment that they'll do it for them. I wasn't doing it for her. I was doing it for me."

From that moment, Skaggs, 43, did it for herself nearly every day, working out with a friend and personal trainer, Becky Schumacher, who is in the recreation ministry at Kingsland Baptist Church. Skaggs ran bleachers, ran the track, jumped rope and worked with "rudimentary" weights in the Taylor High School gym.

"What she showed me is what you don't have to have a big fancy gym to work out. All you need is able to go outside and do something," she said. "I can do it anytime, anyplace, anywhere. Even in a hotel room - as long as you got your two feet with you - you can bring a jump rope."

It was two months after her first workout date that she actually felt the confidence to step on a scale. She was 185 pounds and was now determined to lose nearly a quarter of that.

Her diet came next, cutting out the fatty junk food that forced her to "dress frumpy" for so long.

Two years later, at age 41, Skaggs now buys pants two-thirds smaller that she once did, going from a size 18 to 6.

Her husband, a former baseball player at Louisiana State University, was pushing 400 pounds before taking part in his wife's healthy activities.

"My husband kind of sat back for two years and watched," she said.

"You have to come to a moment when you work out when you know it's something you want to do for yourself."

The 6-foot Jeff Skaggs, who works in commercial insurance for Burns and Wilcox, is now 230 pounds and is a speed walker after suffering from back and chronic hip problems and arthritis.

Little did Peggy Skaggs know that her journey to a slimmer waistline also helped her career. Skaggs' friend, Wayne Meyer, noticed her transformation and inquired about her availability.

Turns out, Meyer was the general manager for the new Katy area community, Firethorne, which was in need of a personal trainer.

"It's a neat experience," she said. "To do that for a community, it's a very novel thought. I don't know of any other community that has a personal trainer."

The most inspiring characteristic about Skaggs, though, isn't her battle against pounds. When Skaggs was shaking off the pounds and was nearing the best shape of her life two years ago, she found out she had to fight another battle - thyroid cancer.

"I thought, 'Crud, now I'm going to get cancer? Oh my gosh, I don't feel like I have cancer. What is it supposed to feel like?' The thing you need to do is take care of your body. It's made me more passionate to help others going through physical struggles."

Skaggs said her hard work made surgery to remove her thyroid that much easier, and exercise during the tough times helped her clear her mind and made her feel better.

"You never know what could happen. It helped my surgery because you don't have a bunch of fatty tissue around your thyroid. It came out nice and clean," she said. "To exercise through all of that, it's been amazing."

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