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Tawni Gomes remembers going into a running store and getting The Look from skinny sales
clerks who could run a marathon at the drop of an energy bar.
“Can I help you?” they asked. But what they were thinking was: “What is this fat woman
doing here?”
Tawni would inquire about running shoes and the clerk would say, “So, do you pronate?”
Pro-what? Feeling embarrassed and stupid, she would slink out of the store, defeated.
Experiences like this convinced Tawni that the journey to health and fitness cannot be a
solitary endeavor. You need help and support from people who are traveling the same path.
You need a community. When she couldn’t find one, she went out and made one. Called the
Connectors, Tawni’s community proved so successful that thousands joined (at last count,
some 17,000).
Tawni took the first steps on her own fitness journey in the mid-1990s. Working 80-hour
weeks as a sales manager for a large corporation, she was earning big money. But the stress,
consisting of hectic business trips, client breakfasts, late-night pizza dinners, was
destroying her health. Overweight since college, she’d tried countless diets, taken Prozac,
gone to therapy. Nothing worked. By 1996, at age 30, she carried 275 pounds on her 5’3”
frame. She felt miserable and alone. Something had to change.
Getting Connected
Inspired by the self-help book Make the Connection by Oprah Winfrey and Bob Greene, Tawni
visited Oprah’s Web site looking for a support group. She couldn’t find one, so she posted
a message on an electronic bulletin board for anyone wanting to lose 100 or more pounds.
People began responding. Gomes started sending daily messages of encouragement, which she
dubbed Thoughts for the Day. “Just walk to the mailbox and back,” she’d write, or “Believe
in yourself.” When a Connector accomplished something, she’d send flowers. When someone had
trouble rising for an early-morning workout, she’d place a wake-up call. Responses poured
in. She appeared on Oprah’s TV show. Soon Tawni launched a Web site http://www.connectingconnectors.com
to handle the deluge. Today, there are more than 17,000 Connectors and she gets up to 500
member emails a day.
“I’m the head cheerleader,” says Tawni, whose bubbly personality and wide smile add credence
to that description. “I just let people know I care. Most of my life I felt that nobody
cared. I’m sensitive to that and don’t want anybody to feel left out. I’ve been there. I’m
not some supermodel saying, ‘Oooh, I just love to exercise in my string bikini.’”
In her quest for health and fitness, Tawni has shed more than 100 pounds and says she’s
determined to lose more. Barely able to walk a mile in ’96, she has gradually increased
her fitness by eating better and exercising more. In ’98 she and 20 Connectors gathered in
Portland, Oregon, to run/walk the Portland Marathon. In January 2000, Gomes will do her
fifth 26-miler, then begin training for her next goal: a triathlon. She’s already cleared
the first hurdle; she bought a swimsuit, her first since childhood. Now she just has to
learn to swim and ride a bike.
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