FREEDOM TO BE ME!
By Chris Campigotto – Meltdown Weight Loss Participant

I was a very unkempt man you could say. I did not dress well, I would shave but only when my beard started to bother me, I didn’t look good and I did not feel good. At the time I joined Sportsclub I weighed 300 pounds. I was tired all the time. I slept in three-fourths of my classes (high school) at least somewhat and was still always tired. I was almost never in a good mood. To make it simple, I just did not care. I did not care about the way I felt, the way I looked, or what others thought of how I looked. My grades were horrible, C’s, D’s - the only two good grades I had were two A’s my senior year in “English IV” and “Shakespeare” - both of those because the teachers, somehow, liked me.

I remember the day that I first picked up a brochure for the “30+ Pound Meltdown” group. I remember thinking “maybe this is worth looking into”. I had been “trying” to lose weight for close to a year and I had not met with any success. I say “trying” because my workouts would consist of working out for maybe 10 to 20 minutes, then going outside to sit in the car while I waited for my ride to finish. Most days I would not even break a sweat, let alone achieve getting my heart rate up to a point where it was helping me.

I brought up the Meltdown class to my parents one day and my father agreed. He believed I should sign up for it, too. So when the July 2008 session started I signed up for the class at Five Forks, scheduling my personal training at Simpsonville. I remember walking in, unsure of what to do. Before “Meltdown”, most of my “work outs” consisted of walking on a treadmill at a slow pace or slowly figuring out the machines. I was completely unprepared for what I went through there. I never had good balance and with my 6’ 3” frame and the Kinesis equipment continued to prove it was true. That night was one of the hardest work outs I had ever experienced, before or since. I was barely able to stand when it was finished. In the first week I lost seven pounds, and in the first month I lost 17 pounds.

I owe a lot of this to the fact that the majority of my family got behind me and helped. My dad started going to the gym as well and has lost a significant amount of weight, too. He pushed me to go when I did not feel well and he strived to make sure all the junk food was kept out of our house.

I’ve had some failures…everyone does. Once I went to go visit my grandma and gained seven pounds in one weekend. Another time I gained 10 pounds in two weeks because my older sister visited us. While she was visiting, we rationalized that it was OK to eat food that had been banned from our house.

But I’ve had lots of successes. I have lost fifty pounds in my year here. I now bench 160 pounds, I crank out 300 tricep dips in 3 minutes, do continued jumping jacks for 3 minutes, and I can even do the crane on the Kinesis equipment without falling over! I am able to walk through the dessert area of a store without any cravings; and whenever I go to the movies, I don’t want popcorn. I have started to care how I look. I still don’t care how others see me but I care more about myself. I am more active, I am not tired all the time, I eat more vegetables and fruits and less sweets.

I continue to go to the 30 Pound Meltdown group. Without it, I believe that I would have continued to gain weight this past year. Instead, my goal is to be at 230 before the end of 2009. The group holds me accountable and I know the scale does not lie when I step on it every Monday night.

I want to thank the personal trainers at Sportsclub for encouraging me when I’m down, for helping me get back up when I slip, for continuing to teach me about eating healthy and exercising; and finally, for giving me the initial spark so I can experience “Freedom to Be Me” for the rest of my life!