Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Aaron Knowles | Spc. Chelsea Demieri, a native of Oceanside, Calif., and an all-wheeled vehicle...... read more read more
FORT BENNING, Ga. – When faced with a nearly impossible challenge, how should one react?
Run away in fear? Fight tooth and nail? Analyze the problem and find the solution logically?
Everyone is different. Every reaction is different. Just like every obstacle, the solution for the problem is different.
Over the past year, one Sledgehammer Soldier was faced with such a challenge and ended up showing herself and her leadership how unbreakable she could become.
Specialist Chelsea Demieri, a native of Oceanside, California and an All-Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic with the Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, found out in March of 2014 that her weight and physical fitness levels had degraded below acceptable standards.
“When I took my first physical fitness test here, I did awful,” Demieri said. “At that point, I was almost 80 lbs. overweight.”
“I knew that I had a problem, but no one was really addressing it with me,” Demieri said. “My family; I don’t think they wanted to be mean to me and I wasn’t really admitting it to myself.”
After speaking with her leaders, Demieri was in shock. It took her running her two miles in 28 minutes and failing an Army Physical Fitness Test for her to realize how bad the situation had become.
After failing the Physical Fitness Test, Demieri was prescribed to go through nutritional training and body fat testing. Demieri and her leadership discovered that she weighed 225 lpounds, and was 47 percent body fat.
Her leadership followed regulatory guidelines and placed her in the Body Composition Program to monitor her progress.
In section 3-9 of the Army Body Composition Program, Army Regulation 600-9, it states, “a monthly loss of either 3 to 8 pounds or 1 percent body fat are both considered to be safely attainable goals that enable Soldiers to lose excess body fat and meet the body fat standards. Soldiers that meet either of these goals are considered to be making satisfactory progress in the ABCP.”
“I didn’t think that I was going to be able to accomplish losing that much weight,” Demieri said.
“My unit told me that I needed to pass the APFT and lose all of this weight, or I could be chaptered out,” Demieri said. “That’s when I realized that I had a really big thing coming; it was do or die.”
One of her biggest supporters after facing the difficult truth, was her husband, Demieri stated.
“My husband has always been super supportive of whatever I have chosen to do,” Demieri said. “When I was sitting there describing everything that I needed to do and accomplish, he became my coach and kept saying, ‘yeah, you can do this.’”
To Demieri, it still seemed like an insurmountable goal.
But she refused to let that stop her.
In seven months following that APFT, Demieri had managed to not only lose more than 70 pounds, but she had started to lead the pack when it came to PT.
Staff Sergeant Darrell Owens, the Scheduled Maintenance NCO for BSTB, 3rd ABCT, 3rd ID, became Demieri’s section sergeant right before the March 2014 APFT.
“To see her come from that, to where she is now, is a complete transformation and has really motivated other Soldiers around her,” Owens said.
“We have tried to motivate her as best we can, but she is just on another level by herself,” Owens said.
According to Owens, Demieri is now coaching other Soldiers within her section and organization that are on the Weight Control Program.
“Anybody can use her as an example,” Owens said. “All it takes is a little bit of hard work and some motivation. Just take a look at her and know that it is possible.”
Some of Demieri’s most recent accomplishments are scoring a 276 on the APFT, as well as being nominated by her battalion for the 3rd ABCT Soldier of the Year.
“She’s a one of a kind Soldier,” Owens said. “With what she has gone through and what she still goes through on a daily basis, she is living proof, that you can go through anything and overcome it.”
According to Owens, his Soldier is living proof that regardless of what anyone is struggling with, whether it is PTSD, depression, or weight loss, there is hope.
| Date Taken: | 03.26.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 04.02.2015 05:57 |
| Story ID: | 158908 |
| Location: | FORT BENNING, GA, US |
| Hometown: | OCEANSIDE, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 76 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Sledgehammer Soldier sheds weight, fears, by SFC Aaron Knowles, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT