Filed under 'Abby Rike'

Shedding 82 pounds has empowered The Biggest Loser contestant Abby Rike to begin healing after losing her husband and two children in a tragic car crash.

Dropping the weight, though, was easy compared to the nightmare she’s endured since a speeding driver crashed head-on into her family's minivan, killing her husband Rick, 33, and their two children: Macy, 5, and Caleb, just 2½ weeks. In one of the most inspirational stories this year, Abby sat down with Life & Style to talk about her amazing journey from sorrow to success.

On drowning her grief in food: “My only real socialization was going out to eat. I had zero energy. I just felt like I had sludge in my veins. I was so lethargic.”

On learning to live through the grief: “You can’t bury your two children and the love of your life and think, Oh, I’m just going to be okay. You can’t help what happens to you, but you can choose how you respond to it. My journey was more about finding out where I fit into the world. For me it was truly about healing from the inside out.”

On how losing the weight was like shedding her grief: “Losing weight is kind of like shedding the sadness and hurt and emerging stronger. My life will matter again.”

On her life before the wreck in October 2006: “I wouldn’t have traded lives with any human on the planet because my life was the best.”

On her life after the accident: “After the wreck, all my roles were gone. I wasn’t a wife anymore. I wasn’t a mother anymore. I was broken and falling apart inside. There were pieces of shrapnel where my heart used to be — it was shattered.”