The 38-year-old wife, mother and Duke University finance manager is seeing big changes after two months working with personal trainers from Move It Be Fit. She's 13 pounds lighter and her clothes fit better. Her friends, co-workers and even her family have noticed, she said.

"I feel better, because I look better now," Lowe said. Before, "I was resigned to the fact that I'm always going to be this size."

Lowe and two other winners of the 2010 Durham Fitness Challenge are getting help setting fitness goals, and planning workouts and meals over three months.

The challenge is sponsored by the David Turner Lymphoma Foundation, named for a Durham resident who was diagnosed at 24 with Stage IV lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. The Durham News will report on the participants' progress through the remaining two weeks of the challenge.

Lowe said she doesn't want to go back to her old habits when the challenge is over. She estimates it will take six to eight months to reach her goal.

The focus on a healthier lifestyle is just one of the positive changes in her life since she and her husband Tommy were laid off and had to move the family in with her mother. They put their Durham house on the market earlier this year.

However, in September, Lowe started the new job at Duke, earning enough income to move the family into a Woodcroft townhouse. Her husband is still looking for work, she said, and has taken over most of the childcare and cooking duties. That's also giving her the time she needs to build muscle and lose weight.

Lowe said she's finding it easier to stick to her diet, too, although she's still tempted to eat foods that aren't good for her. Having young children who eat spaghetti, pizza and fried foods makes it especially hard, she said. But her conscience keeps her on track.

"I'm surprised I've been this disciplined for this long," she said.

Variety is the key to not getting bored with the workouts, she said. One of her trainer Brad Calhoun's more interesting suggestions was to assign exercises to each number on a die, she said. The roll of the die determines what set of reps she'll do next or whether she gets to rest.

Calhoun said it's important to increase the intensity and duration of the workouts as she progresses.

"Weightlifting and a proper diet will increase your metabolism," he said, and "once metabolism goes up, you see more of a difference."