Paul

Age: 33

Lost: 37 pounds

Completed Program: February 2006

My job has always been incredibly demanding. I remember the time I got my first gym membership through my workplace and was thinking – “I work from 8am to 3am now, who has time to work out?” I promptly cancelled it the next day. I had always been fairly active, more in the outdoors arena than in the gym, which activities such as mountain biking, snowboarding, and hiking. However, once the work load ramped up, these pastimes were replaced by bad habits, bad habits that just kept getting worse.

Weight-related complications began to steadily manifest themselves. Mountain-biking became nearly impossible. My wife couldn’t sleep because of my incessant snoring (which was later diagnosed as sleep apnea). I even started passing out in my office at work. My doctor looked me straight in the eye and said there were surgeries that could somewhat alleviate these problems in the short term, but to really help the situation, I had to lose weight.

Enter 20/20 Lifestyles. I knew going into this program that it was going to be a huge challenge and time commitment, but I was ready. Quite honestly, I was convinced that if I didn’t build myself a healthy lifestyle that I would make my wife a young widow. This program worked for me due to two essential reasons:

1. It taught me the relationship between nutrition, physical fitness, and well-being.

2. The relationships that I built up with my team of trainers, dieticians, doctors, and psychologists were irreplaceable. You aren’t doing this alone – you have at the very least four people are completely dedicated to your success. They are your partners and make it almost impossible to fail!

My personal life is awesome because fitness has become such a large component, and I am always looking forward to the next race season for triathlons and endurance events. My professional life is better as well – I have the tools to effectively manage my stress. No more sleep apnea, lower blood pressure, record low cholesterol, and epic HDL/LDL ratios. Also, I know if I met could complete this challenge, than there is essentially nothing that my job could throw at me that I couldn’t complete. Bring it on.