Mark

Age: 46

Lost 87 pounds

Completed Program July 2006

In junior high, I played football, and in high school, soccer. Yet outside of those autumn practice sessions, I never exercised or engaged in any strenuous activity. I also didn’t spend any time worrying about my diet. I was generally healthy in the sense that I rarely had to take time off from work for illness. But the bad indicators were there. My family has a history of hypertension and I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. By the time I had topped 300 pounds, I figured out that I’d better change something.

I chose 20/20 Lifestyles because my company, Microsoft, made it available to me. Were it not for their weight loss benefit, I would still weigh nearly 300 pounds today.

I’d tried other methods. I tried exercising on a cross-country ski machine regularly for six months. I saw no noticeable results. I read the Atkins Diet and became militantly anti-carb, losing 54 pounds without exercising at all. Then I remembered something – I like cheesecake. And pasta. And rice. And bread. My weight crept back up. I couldn’t sustain the all-or-nothing approach.

Then came 20/20 Lifestyles. It taught me how to change over to a sustainable way of eating, with all the nutritional knowledge to back it up. And I learned the importance of combining good nutrition with exercise.

I have to admit that I was not looking forward to 20/20 Lifestyles program at all. I felt certain I’d go head-to-head with the dietitian and we’d spend most of our sessions glaring at each other angrily as I refused to eat whatever tasteless, healthy sawdust she would insist I try to live on. The prospect of exercising with some sadistic trainer felt like signing up for a stint of torture.

Oddly, none of these dire expectations came to pass. Megan (the dietitian) and I laughed through most of our sessions and I tried (and liked!) a number of foods that were way off my radar. And I learned how energized I felt all day after my morning workout session with Jessica. And most weirdly, the tougher the workout, the better I felt afterward.

I had been on two different blood pressure medications for many years. A few weeks into the program, I found myself getting lightheaded nearing the end of my workouts. I found that my blood pressure was dropping too low! I’m now the only member of my immediate family who takes no daily prescriptions, only vitamins and fish oil.

Shortly after I finished the program, I spotted a trampoline in a friend’s backyard. I hadn’t ventured on one for years, but this time I climbed up and started jumping. My young daughters saw what was going on and joined me. The three of us jumped and fell down and laughed ourselves silly. A year later, they still talk about the time Daddy got on a trampoline with them and how much fun we all had.

20/20 shaved over 20 years off my body age, and that means 20 more years I will get to share with my family and friends.