Jana Roller struggled with anxiety and depression her entire life, and at 307 pounds, she says she couldn’t find the strength to motivate herself to get healthy.
“When you’re depressed, you tell yourself, ‘No I can’t’ and ‘You’re not good enough’,” the British Columbia, Canada-based mom tells PEOPLE. “It got to the point where I knew that I needed to go after something that I wanted to do for a very long time in order for me to actually do this, because I told myself that I wasn’t worth it and that I couldn’t do it for so many years.”
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Her moment of clarity came during a heart-stopping incident at the park with her young son.
“My ‘aha’ moment was when I was at the park with my son,” she says. “He ran away from me and almost got hit by a car because I couldn’t catch him. I thought, ‘This needs to change right now.’”
That change turned out to be hitting the gym with a strength coach in January 2015. For a year Roller worked hard at her rigorous strength training program, and in January 2016 had lost a significant amount of weight.
“I started strength training six days a week and doing cardio and tracking my macros,” she says. “I had less and less cheat meals, my time in the gym increased, and when we got to September, I officially went into contest prep.”
She liked her results so much that she decided to compete in a bodybuilding show in 2017.
Bodybuilding wasn’t such a drastic change — after all, her father had been a bodybuilder and she herself had photographed many fitness athletes as a professional photographer.
Prepping for a bodybuilding competition meant grueling two-a-day sessions at the gym: She’d go in at 5 a.m. before work for a cardio session and then went back after her son fell asleep around 8 or 9 p.m. for strength training and more cardio.
“It’s been very, very busy for a very long time,” says Roller. “I felt like I lived at the gym!”
On May 6 of this year, Roller competed in her first ever bodybuilding competition — extra skin and all.
“Being someone who used to be 300 pounds I was always finding excuses to put layers on, so getting closer to stage day I realized, I have to take it all off! I was excited [to compete] because I had seen my body change, and I was seeing muscle definition. I had worked two years to get to this point, and I’m incredibly proud of myself.”
Today, Roller weighs 172 pounds and is super proud of the results she’s seen over the past two years.
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“When I look at [photos from the competition], I see the progress that I’ve made, but also I can see what I can do to improve in terms of where I want to take myself in competition,” she says. “Bodybuilding is amazing because you get sculpt and define yourself, and mold yourself into the person you know you’ve always been. When I look at that photo, I see one small step in a very long journey. It was really important to have that to see it, and it made me really excited.”
Roller has found such success in her journey that she became a certified personal trainer and coach with a goal to help others.
“I realize what bodybuilding has done for me, and I want to be that inspiration and support for people that want to do it for themselves too,” she says.
Rock on, girl.
[H/T Instagram / @janababefit]
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