By Mary Ann Bragg
mbragg@capecodonline.com
February 17, 2012
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PROVINCETOWN — Three Provincetown Fitness Challenge participants seem to have hit their stride this week, the fifth out of the 12-week program that 100 townspeople are doing.
The Times is following the get-healthy progress of selectman and builder Austin Knight, innkeeper Kathleen Fitzgerald and photographer and thrift shop volunteer Dan McKeon.
All the participants have agreed to eat better, exercise more and record their efforts each day in a journal, in a program developed by Provincetown personal trainer Denise Gaylord. The fitness regimen is adapted from the 1999 book “Body for Life” by Bill Phillips and Gaylord’s experience running a similar program last year in Provincetown for five people.
The program began Jan. 16 and ends April 7.
“Trying to maintain everything with all the meetings, that’s the hard part for me,” Knight, 54, said Thursday.
He has lost 10 pounds, from a starting weight of 222 to 212, and taken nearly 4 inches off his waist. He’s increased the number of sit-ups he can do in a minute from 30 to 38.
To count sit-ups, participants lie on their backs with knees bent and hands on their thighs, and then lift their heads and shoulders up and move their hands to their knees, Gaylord said.
Fitzgerald, 53, feels she’s going to make her goal of losing nine pounds by the end of the program. As of this week, she is down from a starting weight of 149 pounds to 143½, and she’s increased her sit-ups in a minute from 44 to 53. This week she kept the same waist measurement as last week: 33 inches.
“My big challenge will be one of my personal goals, to run five miles in 45 minutes,” Fitzgerald said.
McKeon, 57, joked this week that he’d won an unexpected popularity contest at his gym as “member of the week.” This week he was down from a starting weight of 217 pounds to 209, and he’s lost 2 inches in total off his waist. McKeon has increased the number of sit-ups he can do in a minute from 24 to 38.