Meet our brave Fittest Loser competitors
When your weight is not quite where you would like it to be, finding the guts to simply step on the bathroom scale can be hard enough. For the five suburban readers who were selected to compete in this year's Fittest Loser Challenge, getting on the scale is just the beginning.
During the next three months, these contestants' lives will be dramatically different: from early morning boot camps to strict dietary plans, they will be asked to do things they never thought they could do.
For the eighth consecutive year, the Daily Herald and Push Fitness in Schaumburg have partnered to host the Fittest Loser Challenge. Each year, five contestants are chosen to participate in a grueling 12-week workout and nutrition program.
The winner - whoever loses the highest percentage of weight and shows an improvement in their overall health - will earn the title of Fittest Loser and plenty of prizes.
Each contestant will work out with a personal trainer at Push Fitness three times a week and follow an additional exercise plan on the remaining days. They will attend “boot camp” every Saturday morning and make drastic changes to their diet.
The competition is friendly but tough. Each year, there are tears and frustration as the contestants come face to face with the limits of their endurance and willpower; but each year, they persevere.
Their stories and reasons for competing vary, but if the five contestants have at least one thing in common, it's bravery.
It takes bravery to step into a fitness studio when you're out of shape, to share your weight-loss journey in the newspaper, to dare to compete. Let's meet the contestants and learn what has brought them to participate in the 2016 Fittest Loser Challenge.
Mel Boldt
According to Mel Boldt, 45, of Rolling Meadows, he has already won.
After several failed attempts to get healthier, he had come to realize that getting his health back on track required three things: time, commitment, and professional help. “I never seemed to have all three together,” he says.
Boldt recently lost his full-time job and finally has the extra time in his schedule to focus on his health, but he has also had to cut back on expenses. Being selected to compete in the Fittest Loser Challenge has filled in the missing pieces by providing nutritional guidance and professional training, which for Boldt is the ultimate win.
Currently at 340 pounds, he is out of shape and suffers from hypertension. Though he has held gym memberships in the past, Boldt felt intimidated by unfamiliar equipment and found excuses not to go.
He also lets distractions get in the way of exercise at home: “I have a stationary bike that stays stationary most of the time.”
With no other major health issues (other than a self-proclaimed lack of singing ability), Boldt's primary goals for the challenge involve becoming fit and learning how to eat better.
“My bad habits were getting passed on to my family,” says Boldt.
As the primary grocery shopper and meal preparer for his family, Boldt is eager to make more nutritious meals for his wife and five daughters.
Kathrine Couston
Retired dentist Kathrine Couston, 57, of Schaumburg had followed the Fittest Loser Challenge each year but never thought about participating herself until one of her patients became a contestant.
Newly retired, Couston finally has the time to focus on her health. While Couston and her husband were running their dental practice, she found that her late hours and hectic schedule made it difficult to follow a consistent exercise program.
“I was eating late at night, and it was so easy after work to bring home comfort food like pizza and Chinese, or cook something fast like pasta,” says Couston.
Currently at 206 pounds, Couston says she has been able to lose weight for important events like weddings, but the extreme nature of the diets she followed made them successful only for short-term goals.
Now that her schedule will no longer be an issue, Couston is primarily worried about portion control and occasional soreness from exercise. She is prepared to limit comfort foods high in sugar and salt.
Couston is confident she can succeed in this challenge, and she hopes her success will inspire her former patients, staff and friends who struggle with their own weight issues. Her husband and sons are her support system and they, as Couston puts it, “do not tolerate complainers.”
Janet Ford
If you were to ask her co-workers, Janet Ford, 51, is a model of healthy living.
Ford, a Certified Nurse Midwife and Advanced Practice Nurse from Elk Grove Village, avoids junk food and brings a carefully planned, healthy lunch with her to work each day. At home, she enjoys creating healthy meals for her husband and youngest daughter, 17-year-old Tamara, most nights of the week.
Yet despite eating well, Ford has struggled with keeping her weight down since she became a Certified Nurse Midwife 10 years ago. “Eating healthy alone is not the key for me,” she says. Being on-call for deliveries and working long hours has made it difficult for Ford to develop a consistent exercise routine.
With two big events in June - Tamara's high school graduation and her niece's wedding - Ford's biggest goal for the 12-week challenge is to get back to a size 10.
With her predilection for healthy eating, Ford, whose starting weight was 226, is not worried about following a strict dietary plan. Her main concern is making time to exercise when she is on call or on a day off after a “sleep-deprived call shift.”
Still, Ford is determined that this time - by focusing on exercise and with the help of Push Fitness - she will succeed. “I want to look and feel good,” says Ford.
Sharon Miller
Though she is not yet a grandmother, Sharon Miller, 59, of Elk Grove Village, cites the ability to enjoy future grandchildren as one of the reasons she is eager to get her health back on track.
At 243 pounds, Miller has struggled with Type 2 diabetes for more than 20 years, and has to take four types of daily medication to control her blood sugar levels. “I do not want to be dependent on these medications any longer,” she says.
Miller is hoping to lose 40 pounds during the Fittest Loser Challenge, and, more importantly, learn to control her blood sugar spikes through diet and exercise.
Though she had some success with weight loss in the past, losing 30 pounds in 2013, Miller has found that simple carbohydrates and unhealthy foods like pizza and Chinese takeout have become a crutch during difficult times.
This time, she wants to take what she learns from the Fittest Loser Challenge and develop lifelong habits. The hardest part of the challenge, she says, will be when her family wants takeout food, but she is determined to not partake.
“You can do anything if you are determined and put your mind and heart in it,” Miller says.
Jiten Patel
Jiten Patel, 41, of Hoffman Estates, has tried almost everything: fad diets, detoxes, liquid diets and what he calls “old-fashioned diet and exercise.” For Patel, like so many who struggle to maintain a healthy weight, every time he lost a significant amount of weight, he would gain it right back.
Now at 302 pounds, Patel is looking to make a big change.
One thing he hasn't tried before - until now, that is - is a weight loss competition. Patel feels that the competitive challenge could be the push he has been looking for to lose the extra pounds and keep them off.
Patel is hoping that with the help of his Fittest Loser trainer at Push Fitness, he can gain knowledge and maintain healthy habits over the long term. “Hopefully everything that I will learn in the next three months I can use for the rest of my life,” he says.
Patel says his wife is his “biggest cheerleader.” As a physician, she encourages Patel to adopt healthier habits.
“This time I'm committed to permanent lifestyle changes,” Patel says, “I will do whatever is necessary to get my life and health back.”