Winners / Ryan O.

Ryan O.

Westminster, CO

Ryan O

Over ten years ago I always thought it would be great if I could get down to a goal of 8% body fat. I’ve always hovered in the 15-20% range. I never put in much effort though, with the closet I ever came being 12%. Two months before the 60day started I decided it was finally time to get healthier and back in shape. My diet has always been terrible and workouts were few and far between most of the year. For a start, I took the food sensitivity test offered here at Life Time. Using those results I changed my diet and after 6 weeks I dropped 4% body fat on diet alone.

With 60day starting I thought it was the perfect way to stay motivated, on track to reaching my long time body fat goal and to start working out again. I hadn’t been consistent with workouts in quite awhile and I’ve never been a fan of cardio. With this program I changed my thinking and embraced early morning cardio before my 6am shift. I’ve never been a morning person in my life. Even though I had adjusted to the 6am start time for my work shift I was always dragging unless I had lots of caffeine to start my day. It didn’t take long to get used to waking up at 4am so I could do my cardio workout before my shift. Without any caffeine I was feeling alert, energized focused all day long. My energy drink addiction became a fitness addiction and now I can’t imagine starting my day without my early morning cardio session. In addition to my new love for cardio I added in a few weight lifting days each week as well. I’ve always loved weight training but over the years several injuries and surgeries diminished my consistency and motivation to workout. Results for the first four weeks were very encouraging, as I dropped from 12.4% to 5.7%. Then my body adjusted to the calorie deficit that I had been on for 2.5 months and started storing fat and burning muscle. The second half of the 60day was spent resetting my body to burn fat again. I had set my daily calorie goal only about 200 calories above my base metabolic rate. It worked great for those first 10 weeks but my body finally needed more with the new intensity at which I was working out. I talked with a few of the trainers about what happened with my results and they all gave me great advice and encouragement on getting back on track. It took a few weeks to flip the switch and get back to body fat loss but by the end, I was back on track and below my initial goal.

Without the 60day going on it would have been easy to get discouraged when my body fat started going up again. But I wasn’t going to give up and let my team down. Our club made three employee teams based on grouping departments together. No way I was going to be the one that didn’t perform well. Because of all these factors, personal and team, I broke through a major obstacle on my way to achieving my health and fitness goals. Even though this 60day is over I know I will smash my goal soon. More than that, I believe I’ve finally created fitness and diet habits that will continue to be part of my life for the long run.