St. Peters Woman Wins Gold's Gym Contest By Losing 40 Pounds

A St. Peters woman won big by losing a lot of weight. 

Paula Castano, of St. Peters, was the female 2013 Gold's Gym Challenge winner after she lost 41.2 pounds in 12 weeks. Castano went from 184.2 pounds down to 143 pounds—dropping 10.5 percent of her body fat and losing nearly 21 total inches.

Every year Gold's Gym does the Challenge giving participants a chance to work  with local Gold's Gym trainers (or on their own) to transform their lives, while also competing to win cash prizes totaling $75,000. Thousands of members participated at hundreds of gyms nationwide in the 12-week challenge,

When the 12 weeks were in the books, Gold's Gym locations from around the country submitted their best male and female success stories in the following age categories: 18-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59 and 60-plus.

A national panel then convened the local winners to find the national winners. The panel looked total body transformations, before and after photos, amount of weight lost, muscle tone, inches lost, percentage of body weight lost and personal testimonials. 

More than 15,000 individuals that competed and a group of 10, which includes two age category winners and two overall champions, were then picked for their dramatic transformations and inspirational stories and awarded a cash prize.

Castano was the winner in the age 40-49 category and the top woman overall. 

"Going into the Challenge, I had just lost my mother and had been forced to relocate to another state due to my husband's job. Being away from my family and friends during the time I needed them most put me in one of the darkest times of my life," Castano said in a press release. "Having just turned 40, I decided I needed to do something positive in my mother's memory, and with the help of my neighbor, I joined the Gold's Gym Challenge -- and in just 12 weeks, Gold's Gym, and my trainer Lindsey, changed my life. I think of them as angels sent from above."