Casey Boggs navigated a lot of change leading up to 2023. The death of a family member. A new job. The COVID-19 pandemic. Starting her own family–navigating loss and the birth of her son. 

Through it all, she had a similar–and common–coping strategy: food. “I spent so much in our cafeteria. It is insane the money I spent on tater tots and whatever else I ate,” she recalls. 

And those years of using food as a crutch took a toll, even after the changes calmed. 

“After all those years of craziness, things were finally getting to the point where everything felt a bit more stable,” she says. “But I was really sluggish. Even walking out to my car, I was getting out of breath.” 

That’s when she got an email about Not a Single Pound. 

The starting line

Casey’s no stranger to the Not a Single Pound Challenge, making the pledge in previous years to avoid gaining weight from Thanksgiving through the New Year. But weighing in for the 2023 challenge brought a new realization: She was the heaviest she had ever been as an adult. 

“When I got on that scale, I had to physically write down how much I weighed. Up until that point, I’d just been hiding it. I couldn’t believe that I had gotten to that weight and just how terrible I felt.” 

She wrote her weight on a Post-it note, put it in her desk drawer, and started the challenge. 

Making progress–one habit at a time

Looking back on her experience, Casey has two pieces of advice: Make small changes, and stay consistent. 

“Even a small step toward change is still a step toward change. You don’t have to change your whole life overnight. It doesn’t have to be 0 or 100–it can be right in the middle.” 

For Casey, those changes started with preparing meals in advance, and being more mindful of what she was eating. She gave a recent example from a dinner out with her family. 

“Instead of choosing like I normally would have–cheese enchiladas with cheese on the top and a million chips–I had tacos. And instead of 500 chips, I had maybe 5 or 10 and wasn’t drowning everything in cheese.” 

A few months after she started meal prepping, in January, she joined a gym. And that same month, she and her co-workers in the Kettering Health Main Campus PET Department started their own fitness challenges, trying to help each other get healthy and stay accountable. Each month, they’d focus on a different exercise, like squats, lunges, or calf raises.  

Eventually, Casey began noticing changes. She did more push-ups, lifted heavier weights–even went down a scrub size. A self-confessed “numbers person,” to this day, she still documents those wins and takes progress photos to remind herself of just that: She’s making progress. 

“You don’t have to be perfect every single day. As long as you’re consistent, then you just have to keep on truckin’.” 

And Casey has. Since weighing in for Not a Single Pound in November 2023, she’s lost more than 40 pounds. 

Remembering her purpose

Today, Casey still meal preps, and she now goes to the gym six days a week. She’s found a routine that works for her. 

“I’m in such a better place. I have a lot more stamina; I can buzz around here [Kettering Health Main Campus]. And being healthier has really helped. I’m now able to be more present with my patients and my family.” 

Thinking back to her starting line, Casey remembers how hard it was to start the challenge as a new mom. 

“Motherhood rocks your whole world, and I lost who I was. But if you’re not healthy and you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re not going to be able to help anyone else.” 

Becoming a mom served not only as her motivation; it reframed her definition of being healthy. 

“In your younger years, you just want to look cute,” she jokes. “It originally started out as, ‘Hey, I want to lose some weight and look good.’ But now, it’s more about aging gracefully. I want to be able to partake in all of the things that my son has planned for his life. I want to be there.”

The 2024 Not a Single Pound Challenge starts with weigh-ins November 13-17. Click here to learn more.