Member Success Story

As promised, here's the story my gym posted on their "Member Success Story" board. The photo they used is this one.

I’ve been overweight my entire adult life. At 5’7" and 170 pounds I was squarely in the "overweight" area on the BMI scale. I decided to live with it as making a change is hard – working out and dieting is hard work. I learned to like myself at 170. At 29 years old I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression. I was put on medication, and while the meds gave me my life back, they brought more weight with them. I was over 200 pounds now. In February of 2004 I was given a free "body composition" test. They told me I was 206 pounds with a body fat of 37.8%. On the BMI scale I was now "obese." I began working out the next day. After not losing much in the first month, I added a strict diet to the mix and the weight started coming off. I lost the "medication weight" and was back to 170. I joined 24 Hour Fitness in November of 2004. I’ve continued losing weight from 170 down to 140 – a healthy weight range for my height. My last body fat test showed a body fat percentage of 23.6% - that’s a drop of more than 14%! I have never weighed this little my entire adult life. I love working out at 24 Hour Fitness and have really begun enjoying weight training – I can actually see some muscles now! And best of all, I am still not bored 3 ½ years later. I have so many choices for weight training and cardio that I can change it up whenever I need to and the exercise is so important in keeping the weight off. I am never going back to my fat self. I’ve gotten rid of all my fat clothes except for two pairs of my fattest jeans to remind myself how far I have come.

And if you want to read the original that the above is based on, it can be found here.

Technorati tagged: diet, low fat, weight loss, health, exercise, obesity, overweight, fitness