As the Durham Fitness Challenge draws to a close, Stacie Pointer said she's realized that what the scale says is not as important as the tangible benefits she sees every day.

"Generally, when you start eating healthy, when you start doing healthy things, you start to want more of it," Pointer said. "The numbers are less important."

She and two other winners of the 2010 Durham Fitness Challenge have been getting help setting fitness goals, and planning workouts and meals, since September.

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 is reporting on the participants' progress through November.

Pointer has been traveling a lot in the last month or so and, as a result, has missed a few sessions with personal trainer Craig Long. However, she continues to find time to walk, even during a recent conference in Las Vegas.

"I've been walking myself into the ground whenever I go to these places," she said. "One day, I walked for three hours straight. It was really nice."

Traveling also can make it hard to stick to a healthy diet, but Pointer said she tried to stick with healthy options.

Although she hasn't checked her weight since the last assessment at the Move It Be Fit studio, Pointer said she has had more stamina and strength. The challenge experience also made her re-evaluate her goals.

"There's such emphasis on weight loss, specifically for health and especially in the popular media, but I have to think that even though I didn't see any weight loss on the scale in the first month, I knew that my body was feeling different, that I was feeling better, that I was getting stronger, had more stamina, so it's really made me focus less on the numbers," she said.

Even though she would love to keep working with a personal trainer, Pointer said it's not really an option now. Instead, she might team up with a workout buddy who can help keep her motivated and hold her accountable.

"If you do it for the right reasons, the motivation will come naturally. If you do it for other people, if you don't see the numbers, you're going to lose sight of it very easily," she said. "You're going to get out of it what you plan to get out of it."