by Hoda Kotb
“I looked at my phone and I saw his number come in, and I pushed talk on my cell phone. And I think he was just as surprised as I was that I answered,” she says. “I could hear he was there. I was so angry and filled with hate, but I actually felt sorry for him, because I knew him as a person, and there is a legitimately good side of him, and he’s had a horrible life as a child, which is not an excuse, but he doesn’t know anything different. So I said, ‘I have forgiven you for what you did to me and my kids, and you have no control over me anymore.’ There was dead silence, and it felt like an eternity, and he hung up. And I have never heard from him since then. When they know that they don’t have control, they don’t want you anymore.”
But Amy wanted a lot more. She had finally rid herself of Robert and had earned back her kids. The counseling had helped her realize the depth of her battered psyche; she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Amy wanted to be mentally and physically healthy for her boys, so she began to implement what she already knew from decades of experience.
“I’ve done Weight Watchers, the cabbage soup diet, I did Atkins for a while, I did just exercise and diet pills, I did the Zone Diet, I did Nutrisystem, I did prescription appetite suppression pills,” she says. “Fat people are the smartest people when it comes to dieting because we have read every book, we have been on every diet, we have tried every pill; so fat people are super smart when it comes to dieting. We know what to do. We know what we’re supposed to eat; we know what we’re not supposed to eat. We know we’re supposed to eat lean proteins and healthy carbs and lots of veggies, lots of water, but people don’t address the root cause as to why they’re fat in the first place. So, I knew what to do as far as what I was supposed to do physically. But going to counseling at that time was key, because it was addressing the root cause as to why I used food as an addiction. Most people use alcohol or drugs, but most people don’t recognize food as an addiction like crack or alcohol.”
Amy knew she needed to develop a sound eating plan that she could follow the rest of her life.
“I just kind of incorporated all the diets I liked,” she says. “I wanted it to be sustainable. And then, ninety-eight percent of it was portion control.”
Amy knew she also needed to sweat. At 490 pounds, she was embarrassed to begin working out in a gym. She decided to start moving to Billy Blanks Tae Bo fitness VHS tapes in her living room, and to walk around the block. Once. Amy literally took it one step at a time.
I ask her how long it took before exercise felt a bit easier.
“Oh, my God. Ha! Probably six months. The first week I went three times around the block, so each week I had a new goal. I would either walk two times around or I would go one time around, but it had to be faster than the week prior. So, if it took me an hour the first week, the next had to be under fifty-nine minutes. Every week there was a goal for either duration or time. Even with Tae Bo, I would only add a minute. It wasn’t like, Oh, I’m feeling great this week, I’m gonna do twenty minutes. I set realistic goals.”
In nine months, Amy lost a hundred pounds. She rewarded herself with a membership to the Anoka YMCA, undeterred by judging eyes.
“Sometimes people would look,” she says, “but people stared at me when I was five hundred pounds, so people staring at me now was not any different.”
Amy focused on using the Nautilus and cardio machines but avoided the group fitness classes. She drew the line there for bravery.
“You’re freaked out. You’re way too scared to do that in front of everybody.”
Amy continued working on her health and working at the software company that had taken a chance on her. She was also busy raising Marcus and Terrell. As sore as her body was, Amy says the tougher challenge was mental.
“There are just days that suck going to the gym. You’ve had a long day at work, you’re tired, you have stuff to do, there are groceries to get, the house is dirty, and so there are always roadblocks. You can use every excuse in the book not to go. So I think for me, it was more mental—mentally getting through the excuses.”
Excited for her fresh start, Amy’s coworkers took it upon themselves to create online profiles for her on two dating websites. In March 2006, Amy met a man named Daryl Barnes over the Internet. He lived in Virginia and worked in Washington, D.C. She admits now that it was too soon, but Amy moved her family from Minnesota to Virginia to live with Daryl after knowing him for just three months. She loved the idea of a new beginning.
“I was starting from scratch—from the gym, to people, to my job, to everything.”
Before she moved, she landed a job in D.C. with the Gates Foundation, supporting directors involved with improving education in the United States. She also joined Gold’s Gym. She and Daryl were married in June 2007 and amicably divorced in July 2008. She kept his last name and calls him a good man. They both simply moved forward too quickly.
Amy’s quest for fitness and health continued. She now weighed 240 pounds and began to experiment with equipment that would reshape her body.
“I was using free weights and doing group fitness classes, because they helped with the weight loss and there was a sense of accountability. Gold’s Gym is more of a muscle-head gym, so that was my first taste of seeing bodybuilders and people in the fitness industry work out,” she explains. “That’s when I was like, Yep, that’s what I want to do; that’s how I want to look. And, even though I was heavier, I worked out on the free weights and nobody ever questioned it or made me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes, someone would ask me, and I’d say, ‘I want to be a bodybuilder,’ and there I was at 220 pounds, and they would just say, ‘Okay, good for you.’ ”
Amy worked out at four thirty in the morning before heading to the office. She always saw a fellow early bird there named Allen Thompson, who worked at the Pentagon. They shared an interest in health and fitness, and eventually began dating.
“Here was this person who was strong, and driven, and passionate about everything,” says Allen. “She was passionate about the way she cooks, and passionate about her dogs, passionate about her kids, and I liked that.”
When her weight dropped to two hundred pounds, Amy studied for and received certification as a personal trainer. She added to that a certification in nutrition. More and more, Amy realized her interest and passion lay in sharing all she’d learned about domestic violence and overall health. Amy quit her job at the Gates Foundation and established her own health and fitness company. In November 2009, she and Allen competed in an international fitness competition in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Over four years, she had lost an astounding 325 pounds.
“I actually took a picture on my phone,” she says. “I weighed in at that competition at one-sixty-nine.”
Weight at 2009 FAME International Championships.
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. (Courtesy of Amy Barnes)
(In case you’re wondering, I asked Amy why she doesn’t have issues with excess skin, which can be a side effect from extensive weight loss. She says she does have extra skin, but in bodybuilding photos, she wears sheer pants or a wrap to cover her legs and belly area. She says there are other factors that reduced her extra-skin issue.
“For me, it’s because of good genetics. Secondly, I was in my early to midthirties when I was at my heaviest. Thirdly, it’s because I lost the weight slowly, and because I lifted weights. Even when I was heavy, I lifted weights the whole time.”)
In 2009, Amy also became a contractor with the Department of Labor and began working with kids enrolled in the Job Corps program. Her role was to head up the Health and Wellness program, but it was also a chance for Amy to encourage underprivileged kids and to share with them what she’d learned by living through domestic violence.
“The weight loss to me is the most secondary part of my life,” she says, “in comparison to everything else my kids and I have been through.”
Allen has heard some but not all of what Amy endured during her years with Robert. He says she takes
responsibility for her role in the situation and has been extremely open about the rawness of the abuse.
“It’s hard. It makes me angry, but at the same time, it puts the day-to-day stuff into perspective. I thought I had baggage; I don’t have any baggage. I thought I had some drama; I haven’t been through anything,” he says. “It changes your outlook on life. The guys at work ask me all the time, ‘Why are you so, like, ‘It’s getting better, just take baby steps,’ and I just say, ‘Because I live with somebody who has survived the unimaginable, and then figured out a way to get her kids back, and raised two kids who are great young men.’ It’s humbling.”
Amy exposes the Job Corps kids she works with to opportunities in the fitness industry and encourages them to excel. Many have neglectful parents and live in broken homes.
“To them, domestic violence is normal. I see these kids and I just want to rescue every single one of them. These kids have never had anybody believe in them. It’s sad, because that’s all they know; they wouldn’t know a healthy relationship if it bit ’em in the ass. My kids could have turned out like these Job Corps kids, but they didn’t. They are straight-A students; they are part of the football team. Everything they’ve been through has somehow made them better kids, and better human beings, and more accepting of people and adversity. They get being poor, they get not having anything, they get being teased because you’re fat or you’re a mixed race. The adversity could have turned them to drugs and to being hoodlums, but they have turned out to be law-abiding citizens and the coolest kids you’ll ever meet.” She starts to cry. “Because they are strong and they are kind. My kids and I have a very special relationship. I want them to be proud of me and they want me to be proud of them. And Allen has been a strong male role model for them now for four years.”
From the start, Amy told Allen she wanted him to influence her sons in a positive way and to be involved in disciplining them. As you might imagine, that took some finesse.
“There were a few times when Marcus would come to protect his brother because he thought that I was going to do something to him,” says Allen, “that I was going to hurt him because I was yelling at him about his grades. It just took a while for them to realize that I was in a position that I wanted them to be great, just like their mom. Once we got to the understanding that I wasn’t gonna put my hands on them and hurt them, we were great. It wasn’t hard, we just needed time.”
Marcus and Terrell watched closely how Allen treated Amy.
“Marcus would do the same thing with his mom; he’d come check on her. Once they were able to see that we could have a disagreement and still be okay, and no one was physically harmed, and that we could have disagreements as adults, then they could trust me.”
By 2010, work and home life for Amy were busy and productive, but it was time for another move. The D.C. area was too expensive and warm days were too rare. Amy, her sons, and Allen headed for the sunny South.
TEN YEARS LATER
In July 2011, with fifteen hundred miles and ten years between Amy and the day she met Robert, a new chapter began for her in Orlando, Florida. Marcus and Terrell, fifteen and thirteen, settled into school and joined the track and football teams. Allen found work similar to his role at the Pentagon, but in the private sector. Amy took a job at a women’s fitness studio as a weight-loss consultant and manager but decided a year later to work fewer hours and for herself. In March 2012, she started a new venture, creating custom weight-loss programs for clients.
At thirty-eight, Amy is tanned and pretty. All totaled, she wears five rings on her fingers, which are tipped with a French manicure. Her built arms are a testament to her dedication in the gym. Amy’s shoulder-length hair is dark, her eyes are hazel, and she is open, funny, and straightforward. A typical day for her begins before sunrise.
“Our alarm goes off every morning at four thirty, we both start with a protein shake, and we share a cup of coffee on the way to the gym,” she says, referring to Allen. “We work out at the gym upwards of an hour and a half to two hours. We lift a particular body part, we usually do some kind of boxing circuit, and then we’ll do cardio for thirty or forty-five minutes. Then, I come home and I eat breakfast, which usually consists of egg whites and oatmeal, and then my day starts.”
Amy prepacks her lunch, usually lean protein and veggies, nothing with enriched white flour. She eats every two to three hours—perhaps brown rice or a sweet potato, sometimes vegetables. In the middle of the day, she fixes another protein shake. Some days she works as a consultant at doctors’ offices, other days she spends time answering e-mails, marketing her company, or writing articles for two fitness magazines.
“My days usually end at four o’clock, because I go and pick up my kids from school.” She adds, “I have to say, as old as they are, could they walk home? Sure.”
But Amy says that’s why she started her own business. The flexibility adds to her quality of life.
“I get to pick them up from school, and I get to go to their track meets and their football games, and to me, that’s more important than having to work seventy hours a week just to pay the bills.”
The brothers are close. Marcus is a junior in high school, is a European history buff, and plays center on the varsity football team. Terrell is in eighth grade and runs the mile in track.
Evenings mean cooking dinner, taking care of the dogs, helping with homework, and doing laundry.
“There are some times,” she says, laughing, “I’ll look at Allen and say, ‘Is it too early to go to bed?’ And he’s like, ‘Honey, it’s six forty-five.’ We’re typically in bed by eight thirty or nine o’clock.”
Amy’s life now is a far cry from her former life. She says the topic of those dark days almost never comes up. Her parents never bring it up, nor do her sons. Both boys declined an interview. Amy recalls a rare moment when Marcus referenced their old life.
“He made a comment like, ‘You know that Terrell and I are old enough now that we will always protect you.’ Because at ten and seven,” she says, “they couldn’t.”
I ask her if she ever worries about falling back into unhealthy or destructive habits.
Keynote speaker at 2010 women’s health expo.
Fredericksburg, Virginia. (Courtesy of Amy Barnes)
“No. I don’t use food as a coping mechanism anymore. I eat because food is what I need to live. Me working out and me living a healthy lifestyle is like me brushing my teeth,” she says. “As far as the abuse goes, I think I went through it so I can show other people what it is. Emotional and mental abuse is control. And when you think your husband or your boyfriend is being super caring or super sensitive and he is calling your phone—especially these young girls—they’re calling or texting you fifteen times a day, or they don’t want you to hang out with your friends because they’d rather spend time with you, and they don’t want you with your friends and family because they just want you all to themselves because they love you, that is the first telltale sign of emotional abuse. They’re trying to control you. And from there, it escalates. So, I had to go through it to recognize it, so I can help and coach other people through it.”
Amy travels for speaking engagements to encourage and enlighten women like her, who have survived domestic abuse.
“I can’t speak to the victims who are buried, because they couldn’t get out of it. Every time I speak, it’s to the survivors, and I say, ‘I applaud you for finally taking the leap to get out,’ but to the victims who are still stuck and can’t find a way out, the thing I tell them is, ‘The unknown is scary, because when you’re in it, you know what to expect, and you can brace yourself for the abuse. You can make excuses and try to make things better. But the unknown is scary, because you don’t know what you’ll do financially. They have excluded you from finding a job and having financial stability, and isolated you from family and friends, and at this point you feel you have nothing in your life. The unknown is scary, because if you leave him, what the F are you
gonna have? Nothing. No money, no friends, no family, no job, no security, no nothin’.’ But I tell them, ‘The unknown is scary, but being in what you are with him is so much F-ing scarier than the unknown.’ ”
I ask Amy if she would have braved the unknown had it not been for a judge ordering her to better her life.
“No. No, because that judge forced me to say, It is him or your children. I went through three years with this guy, back and forth with him every week, every month. I went through this craziness. It was the abuse, it was the honeymoon period, it was the abuse again, it was the honeymoon period,” she says. “I left and came back into that relationship over those three years so many times, and it was never bad enough.”
We talk about the residue from the bad years and what remains.
“I have a five-inch scar up the center of my stomach from where he stabbed me. I have scars from when he has burned me with cigarettes, from where he has cut me with a razor blade. The bruises have healed, but those emotional scars and mental scars affect me more now, even ten years later, than any of those other scars ever did,” she says. “Just like the physical scars will never go away, I will always have them.”
In Amy’s work as a weight-loss consultant, her past serves as a guidebook in her sessions with obese clients.
“There’s a purpose for everybody. I feel like all that stuff that I had to go through had a purpose. I coach and counsel people now and I help them get healthy. When you’re living an unhealthy life, there’s nobody who can tell you there’s a better side, unless there’s somebody who’s actually been to the other side to show you there’s a way out. When there’s a client sitting in front of me who’s four hundred pounds, there’s an underlying reason why. I understand it. I’ve been there,” she says. “Not only do I have the certificates and the credentials and the book smarts, but I have some clout to back it up, because I lived it and I breathed it and I dreamed it. I think it gives me credibility with people because they think, She understands what I’m going through.”