FORGIONE: Reinforcements called in at halfway point

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Rick Forgione

July 25, 2011

By Rick Forgione Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Mon Jul 25, 2011, 12:56 AM EDT

Column by Rick Forgione — This Tuesday will mark my official half-way point in my six-month program at ChrisFit Personal Training.

I guess it’s true — time flies when you’re having “fun.”

It seems like only yesterday I was walking into the Hyde Park Boulevard gym for my first session, and then practically crawling to my car an hour later, worried I may not make it to session No. 2.

By the time I weigh in Tuesday, I will have a total loss of more than 40 pounds. And yes, the Green Lantern shirt now fits me comfortably!

I’m my harshest critic and even I’ll admit that what I’ve been able to accomplish inside that gym with the help of my trainer Chris Tybor has been huge.

I’ve pushed a truck, flipped tires, completed more than 1,000 different kinds of squats, logged in more than 30 hours of cardio training and pushed through dozens of other exercises that left me feeling both exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.

Unfortunately, outside the gym hasn’t been nearly as successful.

My name is Rick Forgione, and I have an eating problem.

Maybe not as harmful as before, but I still find myself struggling with daily eating habits and making healthy choices. Chris has given me plenty of guidance and advice. A while ago, he put me on a strict plan to maximize my training by consuming a specific amount of calories, fat, protein and carbohydrates.

It was going great for about the first six weeks. The last six, not so much.

Though I was hitting my numbers most of the time, I was doing it the wrong way. I wasn't balancing my meals throughout the day. I would eat a good breakfast (most of the time), pack some things for lunch and realize around 8 p.m. that I still had 1,000 calories and almost 100 grams of protein and carbs to consume.

So I reached for easy foods to close that gap. For example, instead of eating a healthy apple worth 25 carbs, I would eat four sugar free popsicles that contained roughly the same amount. Even when I did eat healthier options, it would be at the end of the day an hour or two before I went to bed.

During my first week, ChrisFit sent me more than 50 recipes of healthy meals. Luckily, my wife Nicole has cooked me a handful of them consistently or my habits — and results — would've been worse.

And though each week on the scale I kept insisting to Chris that I was hitting my numbers (and I thought I was), he wasn't satisfied.

So he called my wife.

He and Nicole had this long talk about what I should and shouldn't be eating and how she can "nicely" stay on me about swapping the popsicles for fruit, laying off the diet pop and chugging water instead and making the right decisions when faced with other eating dilemmas.

Yep, my wife and my trainer are now in cahoots!

My pride will never be the same.

Actually, I have no problem with the team up — and, for the record, Chris did ask me first if it was OK.

As for Nicole, she’s been dying to help me more anyway. I’ve lost count of how many times she’s asked me how she could help or wanted to make me one of the ChrisFit recipes for lunch or dinner, but I’ve declined. I felt this was my challenge and I had to try and do it on my own.

She will probably want to save a copy of this column because ... I admit it, I was wrong.

When it comes to changing your life for the better, the more “cooks in the kitchen” the better.

So Team “RickFit” officially has a brand new, and energetic, member. And my wife being the caring and wonderful person she is, has already packed our refrigerator with lean meats, fruits, vegetables and all of the other items that Chris put on my “allowed to eat” list. She’s also picked up the habit of checking in with me throughout the day to make sure my numbers are being met the right way.

The way I look at it, if I was already able to lose 40 pounds despite how I was eating before, the next six months under the new regime should be very fulfilling.

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