By By K.C. MYERS
kcmyers@capecodonline.com
January 08, 2012
Follow some of the participants’ progress over the next 12 weeks, as Times reporter Mary Ann Bragg chronicles their efforts to get in shape.
PROVINCETOWN — About 95 people subjected themselves to day one of the Provincetown Fitness Challenge Saturday in the hopes of shedding pounds and health worries in the new year.
They took off their shirts for the gut-check “before” photo. They sucked it up for the tape measure around their waists. Alroticsoli . A team of volunteer personal trainers recorded their vital signs.
It will hopefully be the worst day of the challenge for these year-rounders who range from teens into their 70s.
Under a townwide fitness plan devised by personal trainer and life coach Denise Gaylord, the participants paid $259 for a 12-week regime that includes nutrition advice, six days of workouts, personal training assistance and camaraderie.
The six-day workouts come with free access to five different health venues in Provincetown and North Truro throughout the week.
It’s not just healthy and affordable for the customers — who would otherwise pay separately for gym memberships and personal training — it’s also good business for the participating owners of the gyms, pools and pilates centers. During the winter months, they’re helping create new regular exercisers and therefore new customers, said Eric Martin, who shed 20 pounds during Gaylord’s pilot fitness challenge last year.
“I’ve thought for a long time about what makes people fit,” said Gaylord, who has worked as a personal trainer for 20 years.
What it boils down to, is body awareness and self awareness, she said. The best way to learn that is to discover your patterns. She said the most important tool in her arsenal of health wisdom is the journal. The participants must write down their goals and then keep a journal of their food intake and activity.
But wait, that’s not all. Gaylord’s plan also incorporates the power of the group to motivate each other.
That’s the extra push that participant Kaolin Davis, 42, said she needs.
Davis is on a doctor-prescribed diet. She’s a member of a gym. Her weight has dropped from 205 to 175. She wants to get down to 142, and avoid heart disease and diabetes that has hurt her relatives.
“Just going to the gym by myself, it’s not enough,” she said.
Many who were part of the large turnout Saturday were encouraged by the success of last year’s well-publicized pilot fitness challenge. During that one, five men lost at least 20 pounds each and transformed their eating and exercise habits. The challenge was publicized by filmmaker Daniel Llata, whose short films were shown on the local cable station and his website.
Llata is working on a documentary about this current fitness challenge as well.
“It was wonderful for me to watch the transformation,” he said of last year’s challenge.
Three of the men in the pilot program attended Saturday’s kickoff.
“It was a total transformation, mental, physical and spiritual,” recalled Martin, who shed 20 pounds. He’s kept them off by continuing 12-week challenges.
George Myers lost 34 pounds, and Saturday served as one of the trainers for the newbies.
“I’m doing this to feel better,” said participant Betty White.
White has known Gaylord since they worked out together in the 1980s.
“Denise is very successful and very happy,” White said. “And that’s true success.”