From a skinny 155lbs to a fuller 190lbs and to a healthy and happy 170lbs! Manny shares his story with you..

“I have a very stressful job that requires a significant amount of travel. In the last 10 years I have traveled more than 1.5 million miles, traveled to more than 20 countries, have more than 1,000 nights in hotels and have eaten at some of the best restaurants in the world. When you spend so much time away from home, it is so easy to develop unhealthy habits when it comes to what you eat, how much you drink, when you sleep and how you manage stress. When I started this job I was a scrawny 6’0, 155lbs. When I decided I needed to find a better balance to how I live my life, I had gained 35lbs and hit a peak weight of 190lbs. I was way too skinny at 155lbs, and had started to look and feel chubby at 190lbs.

In the spring of 2014, I visited my primary care physician for my annual physical, and when he took my weight he very frankly told me that my face looked swollen and unhealthy. That was the kind of honesty that I needed, because I felt unhealthy and knew that I needed to make some kind of change. At the same time, my company was really promoting wellness and healthy living, and incentivizing employees (e.g. paying for annual health insurance deductible with tax free $) if you are able achieve certain biometric results by the end of the summer.

The first change I made was to stop drinking alcohol as frequently. I was drinking wine every night, which wasn’t contributing to better health. Within a month I had dropped about 10lbs, so I decided to pretty much stop drinking alcohol all together.

The second change I made was to exercise more regularly than I had before, trying to make time to work out 3 or 4 times a week. While I made some progress with muscle tone, I was having trouble in areas around my neck and waist (which is still a struggle), and realized that I needed to change my diet as well. I had met some sports nutrition specialists that explained to me that a healthy physique is 80% diet and 20% how you workout. Those sports nutrition specialists ultimately started a nutrition company called Fit Fuel. I immediately became a customer and developed a meal plan with them that focused on eating moderate calorie meals more frequently (4 or 5 x’s per day), which increases metabolism, while limiting how many calories I consume from fat to no more than 15% to 20% of your daily calorie intake.

The third change was to hire a professional to help with designing my workouts and keeping me motivated with new, innovative exercises. This is when I met a personal trainer at the NAC, who just happened to be sitting at the trainer station. I gave him a bit of background on some of the changes I have made and what some of my short and long term fitness goals were. He invited me to an orientation workout, and after a good experience, I decided to sign up for 12 training sessions a month. I have been working out with him regularly for the last 7-months, who has kept the workouts fresh, and has helped me to produce results that I am happy with. I am very happy to be a NAC member and to have access to such a great facility, with a great staff that is focused on results. I feel so much happier, and have gotten down to 168lb to 170lbs.

I think the biggest difference about my life is with how I choose to spend my time. While I still consider myself a foodie, and love to dine at nice restaurants, I am much more selective about what I put into my body. My lifestyle has also become much more active (swimming, hiking, training, scuba diving). When I visit a city on a business trip, I spend less time in the hotel bar and more time at the gym, or jogging around the city, etc.

Ryan Miller has been able to adapt our training to accommodate my travel schedule and provide me with an outline for how I need to workout when I am traveling, so when I am away from 7 days, I cam come back and jump right into my splits without much of a transition.

My advice to anyone dealing with a similar set of circumstances to my own is not to procrastinate. If you feel unhealthy and are trying to decide what to do about it, don’t wait for your doctor to call you fat. Evaluate your lifestyle, change your eating habits, change your drinking habits (if you are drinking too much) and develop a good workout routine that mixes cardio with weight training.

Biggest fitness lesson you’ve learned: Walking on a treadmill or lifting a few weights is not sufficient. If you want to make real progress, you need to also change how and what you put into your body.
If you could have only one food/meal for the rest of your life what would it be? It would be Indian food, most likely Lamb Vindaloo. Its so spicy and good.
Favorite song to workout to: “0 to 100” by Drake
Favorite exercise: This is going to sound stupid, but I love stretching.

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