Paige Marg will run her first marathon after losing 150 pounds

"Everything hurt," Paige Marg describes when she weighed over 300 pounds.

“My feet, my hips, my knees. Everything hurt all the time," she said. "To be honest, I didn’t realize how much pain I was really in until I didn’t have the weight on me.”

Marg says she was overweight her whole life. At 35-years-old, she tipped the scale at 321 pounds. She had type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and was taking a lot of medication.

Marg knew she had to do something for her health that was spiraling out of control, she said. It’s why she decided to get gastric sleeve surgery. “I knew that it was going to be something that I could really turn my life around,” Marg said. And she has. In two years, she lost 150 pounds and looks unrecognizable.

She credits not just her diet, but her exercise too. After her surgery, she made the goal to be able to run a 5K without stopping, and that goal quickly escalated. “I started training and very quickly hit that 5K mark,” Paige said. “And thought I think I can do a half marathon.”

Last year, Marg ran in her first half-marathon at the San Antonio Rock and Roll marathon/half-marathon race. Now, she has made it her goal to run the full marathon this year. In order to get there, she gets up every morning at 5 a.m. to train with her running buddy, Sophie.

Marg and Sophie met through San Antonio’s downtown run group a year ago.  They are now both training for their first marathon.

“Every time that I hit another mile or hit another major milestone it felt very self-empowering,” Paige said.

She says it hasn’t just been Sophie who has supported her along her journey, but also her family and husband of 18 years. She says her new life has drastically changed and improved how they both live together now.

posted Monday November 25th
by Sarah Acosta