I.INTRO
When I came up with the 12 Week Change your Body, Change your Life fitnessprogram for the Portland Regency Health Club members, I knew that I was goingto have to lead by example if I was going to persuade other people to try thisprogram.
Also, I was at a time in my life where I was approaching the heaviest weight I hadever been and I was physically starting to feel the effects. I was constantly fatigued,irritable, and sluggish. I was approaching 250 pounds for the first time in my life. Ithought, now how am I going to convince anybody to do a program I devised if Iwas not in shape myself? I didn’t want to be known as one of the “do as I say, not asI do” people. So when I devised the program, the seed of commitment was plantedand I made a conscious decision to myself that I was going to lead the pack.
Little did I realize the effect of that decision that day would be that drastic. Ithought maybe I would lose 10 or 15 pounds, but at the end of the 12-week period, Iliterally thought the scale was broken when it told me I weighed 205 pounds. I hadlost 45 pounds. In 12 weeks. That's almost 4 pounds every week. Since the end of thetwelve-week program, I am now down to less than 200 pounds (185 pounds, to beexact) for the first time since high school. And I can see my abs since the first timesince high school! But the difference between how I feel now and how I felt at beforethe start of the program is what I enjoy most about the weight loss. From themoment I awake in the morning, I am almost always full of energy (notice I saidALMOST). What used to take me three cups of coffee to get going in the morningnow takes me a tall glass of water. I usually awaken at 4:30 am and go to bed at11:30 at night. In between, I work a 40 hour work week, put in 20 hours a week personal training my clients, I workout six days a week, play softball twice a week, just finished my last class for the summer at a local college, write fitness andnutrition articles and programs and I am still looking for more to do.
The energy change is amazing. It is literally night and day. That is the point I reallywant to stress to you. Sure, looking good is a bonus, but don’t we really want to feelgood.I guarantee you, if you want a sure way to boost your spirits and energy and keepthem high all the time, lose weight. Want to know what carrying extra weight islike? Imagine this, go to the grocery store and grab a hold of 10 or 20 pounds of steak. It weighs a lot, doesn’t it? Guess what, when you are overweight, you arecarrying around all of this extra meat with you morning, noon, and night. It is nowonder you feel sluggish and tired all the time.
The funny thing is, when I thought of a name for this program, I thought "Changeyour Body, Change your Life" sounded great, very appealing. Little did I know thatit would indeed, change almost every aspect of my life.
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