From the moment I walked into Life Time on May 26^th, 2016, I had no idea how much my life would change. Being a simple guy that had no real motivation or goals set towards health and fitness, I just wanted to join the gym so that I could feel there was something in my day I had to do. My older brother Adithya and I were struggling with our own personal problems at the time and decided to join the gym together as a pastime to relieve our stress. After our grandfather passed away, things became incredibly hard for our family, as he was a major role model to us. Trying to work through my stress at school along with my grandfather’s passing was an immensely difficult obstacle. We each cope very differently, and as Adithya was coping with his school stress and depression he was also struggling with obesity. I had grown to become a pillar of strength for him and my family despite my own stress throughout this time. We both started relying heavily on alcohol and unhealthy eating to get through this hard time. A lot of people noticed that we started putting on a lot more weight. This led to us being strongly encouraged by our parents to sign up at the gym so that we could work out together. They believed that we’d motivate each other to make a change so that we would stay away from the unhealthy lifestyle we fell into.

I have to be honest. When we first signed up at the club our goals were simple – go to the club. Once we went to the club at least once a day, it felt like an accomplishment even if we hadn’t done much there. The goal was to go to the club 5 days a week and follow a moderate workout regimen we created for ourselves. As time passed, we noticed small progress in our bodies and were becoming more and more motivated. What started off as casually working out each day, grew into training hard with high intensity! What perfect timing it was when one day, one of Life Times many amazing trainers, Tariq, asked my brother and me to join Life Time’s 60-Day Challenge. After he gave us the run down, I was sold. This was exactly the push my brother and I needed to accomplish our goals with even more purpose and motivation. With the already fired up motivation and brewing progress that was emerging from our commitment in Life Time already, the 60-day challenge was the final push that put my brother and me into overdrive. I was yet to discover that joining the 60- Day Challenge was the best decision of my life. It allowed me to create goals, fundamentals and a strategy to my workouts. I was able to use this 60-Day Challenge as a foundation to track my own personal progress week by week and watch the two of us grow together.

Life Time’s made my dreams a reality and helped my mind set realistic goals to help tackle the Transformation Challenge. Now transforming my body to the beach body I always dreamed of attaining seemed possible, because of this challenge. Their nutrition seminars, grocery shopping event, TEAM boot camp, cardio 5K event and cardio burn were some of the many insightful and enjoyable events that were offered as part of the 60-Day Challenge! These events were absolutely terrific because they really helped me understand nutrition and how to eat clean. They supported me with great diet tips, such as learning what foods help burn fat or what allows you to feel full. In addition, they taught me what interval training was and exactly what my heart rate should hit to be in the “fat burning” zone. These were extremely insightful learning experiences that aided me along the 60-Day Challenge. Learning so much has allowed my brother and me to shape new goals every day to create an entirely new lifestyle.

Nothing was more satisfying and motivating than watching my brother and me grow. We motivated each other throughout each day, each exercise, each rep, and helped each other stay focused and on track no matter what. We stuck with it till the last day. I proudly watched him climb up the leaderboards as he watched me do the same. I can gladly say that I am so proud of him for losing so much weight. It’s a step-by-step game and every day we mentally prepared to succeed; today we will do one more repetition, 10 more minutes of cardio and continue to eat clean. That’s just the lifestyle that we love to live now.

The same difference I want to make in this world has to start and begin with myself. I continually followed my goals no matter how far away they seemed. I no longer think, “one day I could.” Now I think “one day I will” and that day starts now. Life Time has helped my brother and me develop goals, and we have watched our dreams become a reality. After everything I feel I have accomplished in this 60-day journey, win or lose, you sure still feel like a winner by the end. I am grateful to say that I have completed the 60-Day Challenge. Now I am excited to see what new challenges I will uncover and what new limits my body can be pushed toward.