Todd Jaeck and family have been members of the Geauga Family YMCA since 2008. They take a variety of classes here at the Y and the following story is about Todd’s total transformation with a little help from his friends.
Todd’s Story
“I began my weight loss journey last May. After tipping the scales at close to 345 pounds, my daughter Sara began urging me to get serious about my weight loss efforts. I am now down to 195, the lowest I’ve been in years. I have struggled with obesity most of my adult life. Despite many efforts to lose weight with yearly diet fads, I never took the commitment to a healthier lifestyle seriously. Afraid that I wouldn’t live much longer, my daughter helped me make it a priority.
For the past year, we have worked out together and made healthier eating decisions. She is a very little person, but worked with me to pursue my goals. She introduced me to Stefani’s group fitness classes at the YMCA as a way to move past my daily walk routine.
Although Stefani probably doesn’t know this, she motivated me to stick with the Y Cycle classes and I began to see good results. The results motivated me to pick it up and increase the intensity level. The classes established my fitness foundation that helped me begin a running routine.
I used the Couch-to-5K running program to train for the Turkey Trot, a 5-mile Thanksgiving Day run, with my daughter. Sara and I now are running together in a road race each month as we train for the Cleveland Half Marathon in May and the St. Jude Marathon in Tennessee in December.
The exercise program combined, with a 1,500 calorie per day diet routine, has helped me shed nearly 150 pounds. Without the encouragement of my daughter and Stefani’s cycling classes, however, I would have never had stuck with the routine.”
For more information about the Geauga Family YMCA and all they have to offer visit their website. Also be sure to “LIKE” their Facebook Page.
This story is brought to you by Geauga Family YMCA
