BIGGEST LOSER "14" -- WEEK ONE

I had a chance to participate in the Paris YMCA/Shawna Morrison Memorial 5K Walk/Run (3.1 mi) this past weekend. It’s always great seeing so many people from the community getting together for this event.

People have different reasons for participating. Some do it for the exercise. Some do it for the competition, whether it’s with others or just themselves as they try for a personal best. Many of us do it in memory of Shawna. I also think that many do it just to have a good time.

There were a couple things that stood out to me this year. The first was seeing the younger kids running. Three miles is quite a long way when you’re smaller like that.

Several obviously had a gift for running, but one girl in particular really impressed me. She didn’t have the typical “runners” body, but I happened to watch her finish, and she was really pushing herself. If these kids can find a way to keep this up, they’ll have a life of health and fitness ahead of them!

That’s why our Biggest Losers always have to do their own 5K before the end of their 12 weeks. They should get to where they’re doing several 5K’s a week, but it’s always different when you do it in a race environment. The one they’ll be doing is in Marshall, IL on Saturday, November 19^th. I hope you’ll join us!

This week, after a ½ mile walk/run to get warmed up, the group had their first workout. The goal was to throw an assortment of things at them and keep them moving for 20 minutes.

Here’s what they did: pushups, body squats, sit-ups, jumping jacks, running in place, burpees, baby walks, crab walks, jumping squats, jumps across the room, walking lunges, jumping lunges, an assortment of crunches, crunches on the ball, knee-ins on the ball, pushups on the ball, and sumo wrestling with a partner and a ball! The 20 minutes passes pretty quickly when you do all those things.

Our Week One winner was Shirley Fiscus, who lost 6.8 lbs and 3.2% of her body weight. Karen Wolfe, Karen Brown and Nicole Clodfelter were tied for second, losing 2.6% of their body weight. That translated into 4.4 lbs for Karen Wolfe, 6.8 lbs for Karen Brown, and an amazing 7.0 lbs for Nicole. Sande Sherer and Vince Porter were tied for third, losing 2.5% of their body weight, and 4.8 lbs and 6.2 lbs respectively.    

Next week we’ll have the results from Week Two, plus I want to tell you about those new fitness parameters we’re using for the participants. Don’t forget, if you have any questions about fitness or working out, please feel free to contact me at “Tom’s Fitness” on Facebook.