WHERE I STARTED
It was in the middle of January 2014, I was at an absolute low in my life when it came to my health and fitness level. I’ve gone through lots of different phases in my life due to being an athlete. I’ve gone from power-lifting to endurance training for college football, to bulking, as well as attempting to cut, and everything in between for the most part. I started lifting weights when I was 12 years old, I have always had a very good knowledge of the weight lifting aspect of fitness and health. My downfall was always the nutrition portion of it. I always took supplements, but the issue was being a high school and college student I always bought what tasted good, was cheap or the bodybuilders advertised. Come to find out the quality of these supplements were very bad!
MY TRANSFORMATION
I started working at the Carbone Auto Group August of 2013 and they offer a wellness program in which by attending meetings and completing a screening once a year, you receive a major discount on your insurance. Well at the beginning, I was all about it because who wouldn’t want to save money? But since attending the meetings, I have gained so much knowledge to get myself healthier. I take all the knowledge I have gained and use it to enhance my quality of life, but I have passed it on to family and friends as well. So, being at the point where I was the heaviest I have ever been in my life – just recently coming off a knee surgery – I was determined to get back into shape and Jack was holding his “CNY’s Biggest Weight Loss Challenge.” What better way to help push me other than some cash incentives? Being in the wellness program at Carbone, they offered to pay the entry fee if I attended all 3 weigh-ins. I had nothing to lose, but I didn’t have a team. My boss, knowing my background in fitness asked me to join her team with my sister-in-law. The challenge started off great, and I made it my personal goal to help the others with the challenge and push them to get healthier. Once the challenge was over, we as a team didn’t win the prize money, but we were huge winners with the new lifestyle we learned to live. We all realized that you can feel good and look good by eating right. The one major thing I will always remember from this competition is that you CANNOT out train a bad diet and that it is all about eating quality foods! People always use the excuse that eating healthy is expensive, it might be! But if you eat healthy and properly to what your body needs you will eat a lot less – in the end it might even be cheaper depending on your likes and dislikes. When I was in this competition I changed both my eating habits and training style where I was able to lose 23 pounds. However, I was also able to get stronger! I felt better on a daily basis and had more energy, but this challenge also helped me to change my mood and my outlook on life. I have become such a positive person that I try to look past all the negativity because it will just bring you down – not to mention it could also cause weight gain. I have continued the way of life after the challenge and as of June, I was down 48 lbs! Over the 6 months, I changed my eating habits and my style of fitness completely. I have changed my eating habits in such an extreme way that my body knows what it wants now. If I eat something greasy or even smell greasy foods, I tend to get nauseous or sick. Due to this, I tend to stray from low quality or unhealthy foods.
THE HELP
I also took some supplements from Nutrishop New Hartford during the contest and even still to this day. However, without the proper diet they would not have worked properly. No, I did not lose this weight because of the supplements, but they sure did aid in speeding up the weight loss process while maintaining muscle and strength. These supplements will help with everyday well-being, energy levels, as well as speeding up the recovery process. I have realized that the people at Carbone who did the challenge and were successful, became a lot happier. In addition, the morale of these employees went through the roof. Ever since the competition, I have become “The Wellness Poster Child” at Carbone according to some of my bosses, due to the extreme change in my lifestyle. Sometimes, all you need is a little incentive to help get you where you want to be and reach your goals. Looking back, I would say if I chose not to do the challenge because of the cost of it, I would regret it today. All around, I couldn’t be where I am in life today, physically and mentally without the initial challenge in January. I credit Jack Kunkel, the Carbone Auto Group and Nutrishop New Hartford, for a major portion of my success, without them the transformation of the man I am today could not have been possible.
