Champion bodybuilder from Spring Hill went from sick and overweight to super fit

SPRING HILL

Four and a half years ago, Shirley Madera was 260 pounds on the scale and fighting a serious illness. She wondered if she'd ever be healthy again. With the help and motivation of trainer Shayne Cahill and her teammates on Team Asylum Bodybuilding, Madera now weighs 120 pounds. At 40, she shows those struggling with their weight that it's never too late to take up a healthy lifestyle.

"I had a choice. I could either accept it, or I could get up and do something about it," Madera said. "I finally decided that enough was enough, and I wanted to feel better."

In 1999, Madera was diagnosed with lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease in which the body's immune system attacks its own tissues and organs. She then had gastric bypass surgery in 2003. The health issues that arose after her surgery prompted her to look for answers, and with the support of Cahill and the Progress Personal Training, Madera began to turn her life around.

The way Cahill tells it, Madera, who had already lost about 120 pounds, was the primary motivator to start Team Asylum Bodybuilding in March 2008. She had been working with Cahill and saw firsthand the hard bodies around her. She wanted to be a part of that and compete with her fellow workout partners.

Madera also took up personal training as a member of the Progress Personal Training team a little under a year ago. Who could better motivate clients looking to turn their lifestyles around?

There is nothing these people are looking to do that Madera hasn't already done.

"For 20 years, she ate bad and did the things she shouldn't be doing," Cahill said. "Madera can tell people that she deals with the same things that her clients deal with. It helps that she can sit and convey that."

Madera even got her daughter Ariel, 16, to work out with Team Asylum on a limited basis. Madera has garnered award after award for her physique at competitions around the state, and judges don't even know how far she has come in such a short time.

At her first competition in October, she placed second in the Greater Gainesville Classic at just 116 pounds. She then went onto Melbourne for the Battle on the Coast in November and also placed second. She was right at the edge of a title, then able to break through June 2 when Madera took the Overall Masters Women Bodybuilding Championship at the National Physique Committee's Central District Championships.

"When she got on stage last year in Gainesville, it took all I had not to sit in the audience and cry," Cahill said. "That was a lifetime monumental achievement for her. For anyone who believes that they can't do it, she is a testimony to what you can do if you put your mind to it."

While Cahill thought this opportunity would satisfy her, Madera now wants to take the rest of the year off to focus on larger goals: a possible national title. After all, Madera turned her life around and is the prime example of what a person can achieve with hard work. When she walked up to Cahill in 2005 and asked for his help, he says he could see in her eyes she meant business.

Since then, her changes in both mind and body, show her determination.

"People shouldn't allow conditions they have to deter them from their dreams," Madera said. "I work on my body, and it's important to me to work on it like someone who has a hobby as a mechanic might restore a car."

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