Diane Heavin: The Walk to Cure Cancer
CBN.com Gary and Diane Heavin opened the first Curves in 1992. The 30-minute workout burns 500 calories, works every major muscle group in a single workout, raises metabolism, and includes strength training (which is typically the missing link in women’s fitness) to build and protect lean muscle tissue, burn fat, and strengthen bones.
Curves is the first to offer fitness and weight- loss facilities in the same location. Their unique exercise machines, dressing rooms, and consulting area only require 1,000 square feet which allows most locations to be profitable with as few as 100 members.
Conventional women’s facilities require cardio areas, weight rooms, and wet areas and thus require hundreds of members to succeed. Like Sam Walton and discount shopping, Curves brings quality women’s fitness to small towns around the world.
Today, Curves has more than 10,000 locations in 60 countries with more than 4 million members. Diane and Gary acknowledge the blessings of the Lord.
It wasn’t always this way. By the time Gary was 26, he had six fitness centers for women, and was making $1 million a year. He was self-made and very proud of it. But by age 30, it all began to fall apart. His wife divorced him and took his two children. He went into bankruptcy and was millions in debt. By age 32, Gary was on his knees, surrendering everything to the Lord. With a voracious appetite for spiritual things, he read the Bible through for the first time, watched The 700 Club, etc. God was cleaning Gary up and making him usable for the Kingdom.
Diane grew up going to church but never understood about a personal relationship with Jesus. Diane spent 10 years in newspaper advertising and handled the account for Gary’s fitness centers. They met when he came to tell her that he would be handling his own advertising (as things fell apart for his business). With both of them coming from failed marriages, they dated for a few years then married and rebuilt their lives centered in the Lord. They prayed together, read the Word, and agreed to not go into debt when Diane opened the gym that became Curves. They remain debt-free.
THE GREAT WALK TO BEIJING 2008
Diane was working with successful breast cancer survivor Olivia Newton-John for an interview for an upcoming breast cancer issue of her magazine diane and learned that Olivia was organizing the Great Walk to Beijing 2008 to raise funds for the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre in Australia and for the Ludwig Institute. Diane agreed to join Olivia and many other celebrities on the 21-day trek of 142 miles of various parts of the Great Wall of China in April 2008. Curves pledged a minimum $1 million contribution. Diane was the top sponsored walker.
Diane says she has seen what cancer can do to an individual and a family, so she walked in honor of every Curves member who had dealt with the devastating effects of cancer, in memory of every Curves member who has lost her life to cancer and in hopes of a cure for all. She says new research shows that being overweight or obese substantially increases cancer risk by as much as 60% with genetics playing a relatively small role. And every day at Curves, they help women manage their weight, exercise regularly, and make good nutritional choices. These are the three most significant things you can do to cut your cancer risk.
Beginning on April 7, there was a core group of about 20 walkers who trekked 142 miles in six stages along the Great Wall, with up to 25 others joining for shorter segments. The participants included Joan Rivers, British Rock ‘n Roller Sir Cliff Richard, Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe (who walked barefoot because his luggage didn’t arrive), etc.
Because many parts of the Wall are eroded and to experience the vastness of China, they spent several days in one area of the Wall and then flew or traveled by bus to others areas of the Wall with the total distance they walked being 142 miles. They experienced the Wall from the heat of the Gobi Desert including dust storms to the snow in the mountains. Many parts of the Wall are very steep, some with a 60 degree gradient. The steps were inconsistent in depth and size, ranging from just a couple of inches tall to as much as two feet tall. And the depth of the steps also posed a challenge as some places their feet could only be placed sideways.
Besides the strenuous walking conditions, Diane became a defacto vegetarian for the duration of the trip as she declined to eat meat that she knew was dog, cat or donkey.
Diane’s participation in the Walk brought the entire Curves community together. She and her team were able to read (and pray over) 4,000 names of Curves members who have lost their lives to cancer, currently have cancer, or who have survived cancer. (As others saw them doing this, they asked to read some of the names.)
Through a daily blog, Diane was able to take all of Curves with her on the journey. And she knows she would not have made it to the end without their support thru e-mails, letters, and prayers.
Throughout the trip, Diane often asked herself, “What would Jesus do?”
Most days the fruit of the Spirit would flow thru her mind – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. She says she was on a mission to be a good, living example of a Christian and she says it brought her to a level of servanthood she had never experienced before – from serving under the best of circumstance to serving under adverse condition.
Diane also says the Walk was a symbolic journey. While she has never endured chemo and radiation, after the intensity of walking for miles at a time, she would want to give up. The physical challenge and wear and tear on her body meant she had to live in the moment and not think of the next day or the next hour, but only think of the next five to six paces ahead. And when they would have break for a day and stay at a good hotel with good nutrition, she would not want it to end.
She can now better understand cancer patients who have good days and bad days. And the Walk also gave Diane more empathy for obese women who feel the weight-loss battle is hopeless.
