My ‘Final’ weight loss journey began towards the end of 2014. Coming from an Italian family, food (and large amounts of it…) was a significant part of our lifestyle. With that, came unhealthy eating habits and an unhealthy life-style that not only impacted myself, but my entire family. My father was a morbidly obese person, who unfortunately passed at the age of 62 from a number of weight related illnesses. His passing was the most important lesson he taught me; it being, something needed to change in my life as my weight toggled right around 300lbs.
My process started off by acknowledging I’m not the type of person who can completely remove certain foods from my diet. I needed to find a way to implement portion control into my eating habits and sustain it. I also realized I needed to find an exercise routine that worked well for me, and didn’t fall into that typical scenario of it working for a few weeks but then I stopped because it became boring. I wouldn’t say I was the type of person who wasn’t active, I just wasn’t active in the best way possible. Fortunately, I enjoy being outdoors, so walking, jogging and biking worked well for me and the process began. However, the biggest change was in the amount of food I ate. I ate what I wanted, and learned to eat small portions and I tried to eat throughout the day. There were bad days (bad weeks at times) and good days. I gave it my best to focus on the good days and with that, more of them occurred.
The most important change came in June of 2016 when I had the fortunate experience of meeting Gina Mancuso Bryant (one of the CoreFitness founders and fitness instructors) at the Philadelphia Art Museum steps, as she was instructing a fitness class. I introduced myself to Gina, and from there my exercise routine changed in a way one wouldn’t believe, until you experience it. At first, the workout routines were a bit challenging, but I quickly realized there were people of all levels in the class and that was OK. I also realized, all of the trainers had their own routines, which kept things fresh and challenging (to my point above about exercising becoming boring).
I also had opportunity to meet a FANTASTIC group of people who became friends and brought a positive change to my life. And by working out with friends, in a community environment, we all keep each other accountable. To date, I’ve lost ~130lbs and I know it’s not coming back!
If you’re someone who’s fighting the ‘devils’ of the scale not moving as you would like, Gina made reference of a comment to me one day that I recall quite often… “You can do anything for 20 seconds”. With that, I realized small steps are OK and do work!
A big THANKS to the entire CoreFitness family. All of you ROCK and know how to get the job done!” – Dave C.
