Last year, Kate Smith took part in The Club’s Second Chance Challenge. Desperate to lose weight to be fit and healthy, Kate’s ultimate wish was to have a baby. Just one year on, we’re delighted to report that Kate’s wait is over and we can now introduce you to her beautiful baby daughter, Sophie.
Having just missed out on a place on the first series of
The Biggest Loser Couples, Kate Smith and her buddy Ben Powell threw themselves into their Second Chance Challenge; they used
The Biggest Loser Club Meal Replacements and the guidance of The Club website to shed unwanted kilos. With regular exercise, they also remembered how much fun it could be to be active and feel fit.
At the end of the challenge, Kate and Ben were delighted when they won the $10,000 prize awarded by The Club for the most weight lost by any of The Second Chance couples, shedding a total of 78.5kg.
Newly-married Kate’s major reason for wanting to lose weight had been to start a family with her husband Mark. The couple had been trying to conceive for some time and specialist fertility tests could not find any definitive reason why Kate wasn’t falling pregnant.
Click to enlarge photos
Kate before
Kate at Finale
A dream come true
Meet Sophie
Kate and Sophie
Thrilling news
Just a few weeks after Finale, Kate had some more life-changing news – she was going to be a mum! “Finding out I was pregnant was very surreal,” said Kate. “We had been trying for nearly two years so I had pretty much convinced myself that it was never going to happen for Mark and I.”
Just a few weeks after Finale, Kate had been feeling unwell and decided to try a pregnancy test. “I saw a really faint line on the test, but I didn’t believe it was a positive result. The next day, I went to my doctor for a check-up and a blood test confirmed the exciting news – I really was pregnant!”
Kate said that the first few weeks of pregnancy were both exciting and very scary. “I’ll admit I was a very nervous mum-to-be,” she revealed.
During the first 12 weeks of pregnancy it was difficult to find foods that didn’t trigger her nausea. Kate added, “I didn’t really have cravings, it was more like anti-cravings – some foods made me feel ill just thinking about them!”
Thankfully, the rest of her pregnancy went smoothly and the next six months moved fast for both Kate and Mark. Little Sophie arrived right on time in March 2010.
Life with Sophie
Although it has been an amazingly happy time for the new parents, it has also been an emotionally charged one for the Smith clan. Kate explained, “My Nan who was 93 years of age passed away just 10 days after Sophie was born. It was beautiful to see Nan with Sophie and we had four generations of our family together that day (Nan, Mum, me and Sophie). But it was sad to say goodbye so soon afterwards.”
Kate hasn’t had much time to dwell on her loss because, as any new mum will tell you, life with a new baby is hectic. The busy yet delighted Kate described motherhood as very rewarding. “Sophie has brightened our lives and things are going really well.”
“Seeing her progress every day is just so amazing. This week she has begun to mumble back at us and really smile and laugh. It’s so much fun watching her play. She is very settled, too – she slept from 10:30pm to 5:30am the other night and Mark and I were stoked,” said Kate.
A Mother’s Day celebration
From her own personal experience, Kate remembers clearly how unhappy and frustrated she felt at not being able to conceive. She feels that reaching a healthy weight and getting active helped her hormone levels settle and prepared her body for a healthy pregnancy.
Right now, Kate is looking forward to her first ever Mother’s Day as a mum and no Mother’s Day gifts are necessary – having her family around her is just what she wanted.
If you want to lose weight to improve your chances of conceiving, Kate urges you to, “Do it and do it today. Don’t put it off until next Monday or the beginning of next month or after your birthday or whatever. It is so easy to put things off and then you blink and another month has passed and nothing has changed. Start your healthier life right now.”
Kate finished by saying, “It is totally worth all the hard work, sweat and even tears to get the weight off and get healthy. I can’t describe how wonderful it was for me when I held my beautiful healthy baby in my arms for the first time.”