Finalists / Patrick C.
Patrick C.
Palm Valley, AZ
Going from fat to fit in 60 days!
I grew up in Nevada playing soccer and basketball in high school. I then went on to play soccer in college and was in the best shape of my life. After college, I started a family and a business. The business started taking a lot of hours to run. I was working anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours a day and my health suffered. I went from weighing 175 pounds to 252 pounds and being obese. My doctor told me that I had to lose weight or I was going to have a heart attack. So I tried different yo-yo diets and they all lead back to me being fatter than before.
I decided to join Life Time a couple of years ago and have been lifting weights and trying to watch what I eat. Then I lost all motivation to go to the gym and eat well. Just the stress in life and in business just had me down. A friend asks me to start working out with him in the mornings because he had just joined the lifetime 60day challenge. I agreed to start working out with him and hoped that it would remotivate me to get back on track.
The 60 Day sounded like it might help me get back on track with my motivation and my fitness. After doing some investigation and talking to a coach, I decided to join the challenge and try to see if this would work. I joined with only 48 days left in the challenge but I was going to give it a try. What I didn’t know was how much the whole competition and coaching would change my life.
I knew that if I did this challenge that I had to overcome a huge obstacle…. I am addicted to SUGAR!! I love it! My addiction to sugar is so crazy that I associate it with the thought of being my legal crack cocaine. If someone were to put a chocolate Long John donut in front of me, I would not be able to walk away. This addiction has been the downfall of all my dieting efforts so far.
My coach, Cassie McCarty, was a huge part of the 60 Day and making it a success for me. She helped me with my workout schedule, my cardio, and even watched my macros (carbs, fats, protein). She would also have me send her before and after photos to make sure my diet was working. At one point in the contest, I remember that I stopped losing fat and she was able to adjust my macros to get me right back on track. I also sent her the body fat analysis report from the InBody scale on a weekly basis.
This might have been the dumbest time of the year to do a body transformation because of all the holiday feast and all the sugar temptations. Nothing like watching everyone eat deserts at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for a sugar addict. The best thing I learned was that even if you make a mistake with your diet not to beat yourself up about the mistake, but just move on and do better today, and that the diet makes up 90% of the results.
I was lifting weights every morning at 4:30am till about 6:00am and returning to the gym for cardio at 5:00 or 6:00pm every night six days a week. The cardio was the hardest part for me because I can only do the stair climber because of knee injuries, and everything else hurts my knee. On top of this, I had my diet that was not the easiest to do. Cassie put me on fish towards the end of the competition and I hate fish. Did I tell you “I hate fish” meaning, I have to gag it down! It was only 10 oz of fish a day but it was the hardest thing for me to do. My diet consists of a ½ cup of oatmeal, 1 ¼ cups of egg whites for breakfast. I ate breakfast before I worked out in the morning. I also took pre-workout and post-workout to help give me some extra energy and help my muscles recover after the workout. For the rest of the day, I would eat 4 cups of spinach with 4 tablespoons of MCT oil, 10 asparagus stocks, 8 oz of sweet potatoes, ½ cup of brown rice, 12 almonds, 23oz of chicken and 10oz of fish.
The results of this competition were as follows. I started out at 243.2lbs and 26.5% body fat and I ended up at 222.5lbs and 14.7% body fat. I feel that this is a pretty good change for the time frame of starting late and being sick the last week of the competition. I am very proud of myself and grateful for everyone that helped me achieve these results.
I would like to thank Life Time for putting on the 60 Day and having everything available to be able to help me succeed. I would also like to thank my coach Cassie for all her help and motivation, and I would like to thank my wife and kids for putting up with my whining and complaining as I fought through changing my lifestyle.
I am excited about the next 60 Day and can’t wait to do it again!