What gets Cathi motivated?

“Cathi’s motivation comes from being an extremely competitive person by nature,” says Our Fittest Loser Catherine Edman’s trainer George Gersch. “I’ve had to remind her that she’s not “in” the contest competing against the Fittest Loser contestants, but she expects the same results as everyone else in spite of her orthopedic challenges.

“Her workouts have had to be radically modified to accommodate her knee injury,” Gersch says. “And we’ll continue to alter them as her knee condition improves. Her diet has been modified, too. We’ve reduced her exposure to reactive foods that are thought to trigger migraine headaches. For weight loss, we’ve eliminated processed foods of all kinds, and she’s learning to cook! We’ve adjusted her macro nutrient ratios to reduce carbohydrates by 10 to 15 percent from where we started while increasing her fat and protein levels.

“Cathi works as hard during her sessions as anyone else that I’ve ever worked with,” Gersch says. “She surprises me during almost every session.”

— Gerry Alger