Two years ago, Jennifer Brown would not have considered herself a runner. Fast-forward to this summer, Brown signed up to run her very first marathon, which will take place on her 43rd birthday. “I used to have a very negative mindset,” Brown told Today.com about her fitness journey. The mother of two from Fort Dodge, Iowa, explained that she still experiences feelings of "guilt" but has since adopted “a lot of coping mechanisms,” one of which helped her lose 189 pounds. In 2022, Brown challenged herself to run one mile per day for 30 days straight. And now, running is one of her favorite parts of the day.
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But it wasn’t as simple as lacing up her gym shoes and hitting the treadmill. Brown said she reached her heaviest weight of 348 pounds at 37 years old, but her earliest memories associated with weight date back to her childhood when she was just six years old.
"I remember being the kid that would walk with the PE teacher," Brown recalled about her school’s annual physical fitness tests.
Before becoming a mother, Brown said her diet consisted of a lot of drinking and mostly fast food. That, coupled with a lack of regular exercise, led Brown to
"continuously gain a little bit of weight every single year." In 2019, a serious health issue concerning her husband gave Brown the wake-up call she needed.
"I realized I needed to really take an active interest [in my health]," said Brown. Her children were also at the forefront of her mind, especially after her husband’s health scare. "I was really honest-to-goodness worried that I wasn’t going to be able to take care of [my young son]."
Bringing a new puppy into the family also prompted Brown to start spending more time outside. Invigorated, she began going on more walks in addition to slowly changing her diet. She ditched alcohol altogether and upped her water intake. Over the course of three years, Brown dropped 100 pounds, and then eight months went by with zero progress.
“I’m telling myself this whole time, ‘I can do this obviously. I’ve put forth the work and done this.’ But I went through eight months of time, and nothing was happening,” recalled Brown.
After speaking with a doctor, Brown went on Mounjaro to help get her weight-loss journey back on track. (The treatment is often prescribed off-label for weight loss, as it's only indicated for type 2 diabetes.) With the help ofMounjaro and her continued diet and exercise routine, Brown shed another 90 pounds. After that, she set a new fitness goal for herself.
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“I started the mile-a-day challenge for myself. I was like, ‘OK, for 30 days, I’m just going run one mile, no matter how long it takes,” Brown told Today.com.
Brown recalled feeling “like I wanted to die” after running a 20-minute mile. But by the end of the 30-day challenge, Brown had shaved off a full six minutes.
“I was doing that at age 40 when I couldn’t do that at age 8 or 9 or 10,” she said of her 14-minute mile.
Brown has since graduated to Peloton’s live class workouts. Her weight-loss journey has been heavily documented on TikTok, as has her relationship with running. Her account (@thisiowamom) has 81,100 followers, including actor Octavia Spencer. Her videos have earned recognition from Jennifer Garner, Ludacris, and reality TV star Gretchen Rossi.
"I love the fact that it has really gotten the attention of people who inspire me because that’s crazy to me,” she remarked. “As time went on, obviously my body changed, and I progressed into getting faster, better, stronger, and I’ve just continued to share that.”
Now, Brown wants to pay the inspiration forward. “I can be a positive force in the world, and I can be inspiring to others. I’ve just decided that that’s how I’m living from now on,” she added.
The mom is currently training for her first-ever marathon as well as Relay Iowa, where she and a relay team of 12 other runners will race 339 miles across the state.
