Success Stories
My Curves Story–Margaret Heighton
In January 2003 I began to take care of Jason, a young adult with autistic tendencies and an anxiety disorder. About the same time my daughter, Heather, had started working for Curves in California. She kept after me on a pretty regular basis to go find a Curves and start working out. She knew I was overweight and out of condition and had been for years. I had seven children and as is the case with many mothers I neglected myself as I took care of their wants and needs. However, the first months of taking care of Jason were pretty overwhelming at times and I didn’t take the time for myself at all in those first few months as we, my family and I, struggled through some of Jason’s behavior and medication issues. In the summer of 2003, Ariane, my second daughter and fifth child, went to California to work at Curves for her summer job. In August, Heather and Ariane arrived in Utah for Ariane to travel back to school in Iowa. Together, they dragged me off to Curves. Heather paid my sign up fee and I made a reluctant commitment to go three times a week and pay the monthly fee.
A few months later I realized that I was happier than I had been in years. I had suffered from various degrees of depression since my father passed away in November 1989 followed by my 13 year old handicapped son in November 1991. I was not losing a lot of weight but I was feeling better. By the summer of 2004 people were really starting to notice the changes. I had started making some dietary changes based on various nutrition books including the Curves books I read. By the summer of 2004 I had lost twenty pounds and had gone from a size 18, going on 20, to a size 14 going on 12. I eventually lost a total of 30 pounds and was able to go off my medication for depression. Events I contribute to a combination of serving Jason and exercising regularly at Curves.
Right from the time I started going to Curves I began thinking of owning my own but after some initial investigation into purchasing my own franchise the thought of doing it alone was just too overwhelming and so I let the thought fade into the background. I was still dealing with a lot of behavioral problems with Jason and my life was far from stable in that regards. I was never sure whether he would be going to work or not on any given day due to his recently diagnosed anxiety disorder. In the fall of 2004, we finally hit on a medication that began to make a considerable difference in Jason’s behaviors and anxiety. Since that time we have settled into a pretty standard routine each day that for the most part is predictable. The first six months of 2005 brought a series of trips. In January I was off to Canada to take care of my mother after hip replacement surgery. February found me in California to assist Heather after her first baby was born. In May we went to Iowa for Ariane’s college graduation and then in June back to Canada for my mother’s second hip replacement. Although I was exercising pretty regularly in between trips, I started neglecting some of the dietary changes I had made and before I knew it I had gained back 10 pounds of the now 30 pounds that I had lost. Those 10 pounds haunted me for the next four years. I gained and lost what felt like the same 10 pounds about four times but more on that later.
In June 2005, Heather moved back to Utah along with her husband, Toby and my new granddaughter, Samantha. I was so excited to have them back in Utah. Over the summer and fall Heather and I began to talk again about the possibility of buying a Curves franchise together. Heather started looking for a resale opportunity and after looking in several different directions we finally settled on the Millcreek location. In March 2006 we started the process of purchasing an existing Curves franchise. In June 2006 we became the proud owners of Curves of Millcreek. We took a club that was barely surviving and over the next four years turned it into a club we are proud of and a place where a wonderful community of women come to take care of themselves.
Many other things happened during that first year of purchasing, owning and operating our store. Right after we made our initial offer on the Curves my daughter, Ariane, who was working and living in Michigan, announced she had met someone and there was a distinct possibility of a wedding later in the year. By April she was engaged and set on having a garden reception. However I had been redoing my yard for some years at a very slow pace and doing most of the work myself. When she announced her desire to have a garden reception in our backyard, it was knee deep in weeds and it hardly seemed likely that it would be ready anytime soon for a wedding reception. Nevertheless we had always talked about having wedding receptions in the yard, and I knew what I wanted to do and had drawn plans two or three years before so we decided it was time to make it happen. They wanted an August date and I insisted on a September date. And so 2006 progressed as we proceeded with the purchase, getting the yard done, building a deck, laying a rock patio, planning a wedding, going to Curves Regional Convention in San Francisco, my youngest son graduating from High School, opening the store, remodeling the store, going to club camp for a week, going to a family reunion for a week. Every time I left town I expected to come home and see some difference in the yard but it just seemed to be sitting still. Somehow magically in the last two weeks before the wedding the yard began to take shape and I started to hope. However with all the stress in my life in 2006 I found myself battling those 10 pounds again and I was a basket case. The good news was the store was growing and I had all my children and their families in Utah once again.
Heather and I continued to grow our Curves club and I continued to cycle through gaining and losing those 10 pounds. The year 2007 and 2008 saw a fair share of challenges but life was moving at a fairly comfortable pace. Jason continued to live life at a fairly even keel. Heather and I discovered we work well together and we each brought our own unique strengths to the business. As the summer of 2008 drew to a close Heather and I started to look for a new location for our club as our lease was up and we felt we needed to move to grow to the next level. Thus began the next hectic period of our life. We found a new location in November after a failed attempt in October. In the middle of lease negotiations my husband’s father passed away and we found ourselves traveling to Oregon for a funeral and family gathering over Thanksgiving weekend. After a bittersweet weekend we arrived home, finalized the details of the lease, signed it on December 5, 2008 and began a month of non-stop work and lots of trips to Home Depot. We tore out carpet, swept, destroyed walls, swept, hauled off debris, swept, chipped up tile, hauled off more junk, swept, ground down floors, rewired electrical, put in new ceilings, swept, moved windows and doors, built new walls, hung drywall, swept some more, painted, swept again, laid new floors, moved our equipment and our office from the old club. We opened the doors of our new club on January 5, 2009. December and Christmas of 2008 are pretty much a blur as miracles happened as we took a dark, dirty, chopped up space that hadn’t been upgraded in over 25 years to a bright, airy and spacious Curves facility in 30 days time. Our members were thrilled with their new home and we entered another period of growth and craziness. In March 2009, my son, Benjamin married Caitlin and in May we held a garden reception for them in our backyard. In April 2009 Heather and I traveled to Canada for Curves Regional and to have a short visit with family. I stayed over for a week to get a visit in with my Mom and have some downtime. In June 2009 I decided I would not only lose those 10 pounds from my body but release them so I would never see them again. I faithfully followed and started living and eating by the Curves Weight Management plan including working out at Curves three times a week. You would be surprised and how difficult it is when you own a Curves to make working out a priority as so many other things demand your attention when you walk through the doors. By June 2010 I had lost those persistent 10 pounds plus an additional 5, making my total weight loss 35 pounds. I had finally reached my goal of never seeing 150 pounds on the scale again. I am now a size 10-12 and love shopping for clothes.
Life is good and I find myself looking forward to the next challenge – opening Curves of South Jordan in October 2010. My daughter, Heather, and I are anxious to begin creating another community of caring women. I love Curves and will be working out as long as I am able to put one foot in front of another as I am convinced exercise, particularly strength training, is the base for a healthy lifestyle.
