WHEN she started her fitness journey in 2012, her aim was simply to lose weight. However, try as she did, she just could not get the desired results.

After two years of shedding a few pounds here and there, then regaining them — plus more — Patrice White decided to embrace fitness as a lifestyle. Though she was motivated to change because of a pregnancy joke, the self-professed foodie’s goal was no longer to lose weight.

Today, with an almost daily routine of 3:30 am runs of between five and 20 miles before hitting the gym, then running again before bedtime if she is in the mood, some might misinterpret her dedication and discipline as obsession.

“I remember one morning we actually started running at 2:30 and my husband looked at me and told me I was crazy, and the guys that run with me are also crazy. He said ‘you guys are obsessed’,” White told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview.

Her running partners are members of Sonic Steppers, a running club White started in 2013.

“I was very insecure and I still am, to some extent- very insecure and sensitive about my body appearance. The worst thing anybody can say to me or ask me is if I am pregnant, because then clearly that would mean my belly is big,” White said, recounting a comment made to her in January 2015.

“So the next morning I got up and I was like ‘Pat, you are going to do this’.”

She admitted then that she would have to do something different because every other approach she had tried did not work.

“In the previous years, my approach was ‘I am doing this because I want to lose weight’, not because I love it,” she recalled. “This time my approach is going to be ‘Pat, you are the president of a running club, you can’t always be the last runner that crosses the finish line from the running club’.”

She said she then decided to lead by example and started seeing results.

“So, clearly I now need to fall in love with this lifestyle and the minute I fell in love with this lifestyle, then everything changed for me,” she told Your Health Your Wealth. “That morning I got up, I took my before shots (photos), I weighed myself and did my measurements.”

White said that was in January 2015 and that she weighed 165 pounds. She now weighs 126 pounds — a far cry from the 205 pounds she weighed when she started her fitness journey in 2012.

White said that by changing her entire way of life she fell in love with the fitness lifestyle and along with that came the weight loss. She recounted that exactly 11 days after recommiting to herself, she lost 17 pounds.

“I lost the 17 pounds strictly by running,” White said. “I ran 100 miles over 11 days, which worked out for me because I was putting in the cardio. Also, over that 11-day process, I cleaned up my eating.”

According to her, she stopped the “little careless eating”.

“I am a sweet freak and I am a bread freak… And I will eat like two or three loaves of bread in one entire day and when my husband comes home and asks ‘why the bread is finish?’, I am like ‘Babe, you know we have visitors’,” White said with a laugh.

There were, though, people who didn’t believe she could do it.

“You had trainers who I used to pay to train me who used to say I would never lose weight because I am too lazy. You have health coaches who you ask to advise you, persons who you look up to for motivation, who behind your back would pass comments that you would never lose weight because you are lazy,” she said. “All these negative things that they would say would come back to me and I was like ‘I am going to prove everybody wrong’.”

And that she did.

She admitted though, that without a strong support system in her husband and daughter, as well as training partners – Courtney Bailey and Marlon Birbridge – who are both certified trainers, she could not have done it.

Her approach was now to set herself fitness goals because she didn’t want to be an “ordinary fitness person”, but an extraordinary one.

In 2015 she decided to do the Spartan Sprint, Super and Beast races, two of which she wanted to complete in one weekend.

“The Super was the Saturday, and the Sunday I would do the Sprint,” she told Your Health Your Wealth. “You are talking about an eight-mile race with over 35 obstacles for the Super, followed by a five-mile race with 21-plus obstacles for the Sprint.”

Although she was injured in the process, she completed both the same weekend. However, she did not complete the Beast later that year because of an injury.

Having only run half marathons before, White’s next fitness goal was to complete a full marathon.

“I have never run 26 miles before in my life, so I was getting married in November and three weeks before my wedding I said to my running partner that I would like to run 26 miles as a challenge for myself before my wedding day,” she said.

They mapped out a route and she ran the distance of a full marathon from Manor Park to Port Royal, looping a short distance back to get the 26.2 miles.

Having her sights now set on completing the Miami Marathon, which was last Sunday, she ramped-up her training. However, she learnt late last year that she would need surgery for a knee injury, and based on the doctor’s advice, she had to stop running.

But fitness has become so ingrained in her daily routine, that this did not go over well with White. In fact, she said she cried when the doctor gave her the news.

“For the first three days of getting the MRI results and hearing that news, I went into depression mode; I shut out from the world,” White said. “I totally shut down.

“This is what I am about and you are now telling me I can’t run. Also, when I was so close to doing the marathon I was training for,” she continued.

She said after three days she re-evaluated the situation and decided she would still do the marathon but at a slower pace than originally planned.

She told Your Health Your Wealth after running the marathon that her knee is now reeling from the effects of completing the race, but she did manage a new personal best time in the Miami Marathon.

A journey that started four years ago has resulted in a well-toned body and a new way of living. And, along the way White said she learnt not to listen to naysayers or allow herself to be dissuaded. She has also learnt that injuiries will come and it is up to her to allow herself to heal and bounce back.

“Because of the discipline that I have acquired because of my fitness lifestyle, it has overflowed into my personal life and it has overflowed into work, and, of course, you have the element that benefits my husband personally,” White said with a chuckle.

And of course, several people have reached out to her to find out what she had done to get her ripped body. She said she and her training partners have decided to start a programme, dubbed ‘Get ready for the road’. It was launched on January 25 and is to run for 10 weeks.

She explained that outside of weights training, the programme includes gym membership through a partnership with Spartan Health Club, personal training, daily coaching, meal prep plans from sample eating guides, among other things.

“It is a you versus you mentality and the programme is not only to get fit for the road, it is to become a fitter version of yourself.

“It is more of a guide in terms of this is what you need to do in terms of how to apply yourself,” she said.

Those interested can contact her team, the Dynamic Trio, at dynamictrio876@gmail.com.