Le Journal de Montreal for Vanessa
April 02 2023, journaldemontreal.com
This Quebec boxer lost 130 pounds before returning to the ring
January 6, 2020. It was minus 11. Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse got up a little waxy. It was still dark. She glanced briefly in the mirror and quickly looked away.
But this time, she hesitated for a second and dared to come back in front of the mirror. She saw the fat overflowing. She clutched her stomach with both hands and remained frozen: “It's as if I had woken up. I said to myself: It's not me, it's not Vanessa, ”she recalls.
But she was awake. His depression had just ended. The next day, she showed up at a very small gym whose owner she knew, at four o'clock in the morning: “I wanted to be sure that no one would see me. I was too ashamed. I couldn't run because of the extra weight, but I walked on the treadmill with a slight incline. And at the same time, I changed my diet. Proteins and vegetables. Plus the intermittent diet that I always practice. At first, I did 16 hours of fasting and eight hours to eat. Now I'm 18-6. I eat at noon and I stop at 6 p.m. Fasting for the rest of the day,” says the 27-year-old boxer.
CANADIAN CHAMPION
Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse is a miracle of life. When referee Steve St-Germain raised his arm last Thursday, March 23 at the Casino de Montréal, his whole life flashed through his mind: “It was incredible. My career, my injuries, my depression, I reviewed everything. And I felt so happy. It's hard to explain,” she said.
During these years of learning in the world of amateur boxing, Vanessa was studying to become an early childhood educator.
She won the title of Canadian champion two years in a row and would have won a third medal if she had not chosen to become a professional boxer.
CONCUSSION IN MEXICO
I pass quickly. There were victories, his meeting with Stéphane Joanisse, who is not related to Vanessa and her father and who will become her boxing coach.
She was going all out and strong with three wins, she got a world championship fight at heavyweight. Female boxers 178 pounds and over are rare on the planet, and good athletes rise through the ranks quickly.
“I found myself in Cancun, Mexico on August 12, 2017. I never forgot the date. Against Alejandra Jimenez, who was suspended for using steroids three years later. I can't say she was doped, but I've never been hit so hard in my life. The referee stopped the fight in the third round, and I was helpless in the cables,” she said.
For months and months, back in Saint-André, she was hypersensitive to pain: “I wanted to come back quickly. I had a taste for boxing. I wanted to train, but I was doing a little sparring with kids and every little hit hurt me. I didn't know it, but I had suffered a major concussion in Mexico. I hid it from myself and above all, I tried to hide it from others. I was hoping for a cure,” she said.
AND THE TERRIBLE ACCIDENT
I'll spare you the withering love stories and the headaches and the rest.
In May or June, Vanessa is in her car, immobilized while waiting for the driver in front of her to turn left: “The tank that was coming never saw me. I suffered a double whiplash. The head flew twice. The consequences were appalling. I had no more strength and no more sensitivity on the right side. I did physiotherapy for eight months. But I was no longer able to hold anything with my right hand. I couldn't train anymore. Nothing more,” she said.
Vanessa locked herself in her small apartment. More friends. More boxing. More training. She didn't know it yet, but she was sinking into a black depression.
“I really ate my emotions. I ate like before, when I trained twice a day. But I didn't move. I didn't go out. I ate all kinds of junk food. I was alone. When we are in this state, we lose all motivation. The slightest effort becomes a mountain.
“Then, as I said, on January 6, 2020, I stepped on the scale.”
A NEW LIFE
So the first workouts, at 315 pounds, were at four in the morning. In a small gym. Out of shame to be seen.
Then her roommate, a construction worker, convinced her to come with him to the big gym. But it was still four in the morning, since he was training before going to the construction sites.
But Vanessa was rebuilding herself. As the pounds of fat melted away and the boxer muscles returned.
At some point, she had the courage to call Stéphane Joanisse, her first coach. She wanted to go back to boxing. He said to her, "Come away, my dear."
But we were in the midst of a pandemic. And Joanisse was now a coach at the Buckingham club with the father of Alexandre Gaumont.
You have not forgotten the follies of Doctor Arruda. When Gaumont was fighting, Vanessa had to stop going to the gym. Because of the confinement and quarantine demanded by politicians. On the third postponement, she was determined to give up everything. Especially since she had met the guy she was hoping for, Jeff Dufour, and a job in Mont-Laurier at the CPE Les vers à choux.
But the passion for boxing was too strong.
MONT-LAURIER-BUCKINGHAM
Made Vanessa stick around. His trainer sends him his training programs at home. She follows them religiously. At least once a week, sometimes twice, she rides from Mont-Laurier to Buckingham for sparring and more specific training.
And her most important victory, she won it when she took off her sweater to step on the scale.
The next day, she clearly dominated Princess Hairston at the Casino and got the crowd going with her aggressive style.
She is happy, her boyfriend too, she is beautiful at the end of the zoom, and the little cabbage worms are happy.
Besides, she's a heavyweight boxer. And as female heavyweight boxers are extremely rare on the boxing world, she was highly ranked 4th in the world by BoxRec.
That means one or two more fights and Vanessa will be entitled to a world title fight. WBC, IBF or WBA, it doesn't matter.
Women's boxing is also that.
