Bob Hendryx

November 18, 2022 by RobZ

56-year-old lost 105 pounds through diet and exercise.

HEIGHT: 6-foot-3

STARTING WEIGHT: 313 on October 12

CURRENT WEIGHT: 208

WHY I DID IT: After a routine blood test in October, my doctor informed me that I was five points away from being diabetic. “Of course, you know that is weight related,” he said. Just two weeks earlier, I saw a good friend who is 75, still works out several times a week and is in great shape. I hadn’t seen him in a year, and he was stunned by the amount of weight I had added. He encouraged me to get fit.

I had wanted to lose weight for some time but couldn’t find the motivation to get started. I called my wife and told her the news, and she suggested I go to RobZFitness and work with a personal trainer. I called right then and scheduled an appointment. I knew I needed professional help.

I met with Rob Zulkoski that afternoon, and we got started the following week. I don’t think I could do more than one or two pushups. I felt nauseated by the end of the first workout.

HOW I DID IT: Rob gave me a few options for getting started. I knew that with as much weight as I had to lose and strength I needed to gain, I should do weight training three times per week. Rob also suggested walking on the treadmill at least two or three times per week.

The most important aspect of any fitness plan is eating properly, and I learned to do that with Rob’s help. I eat smaller quantities several times per day. My eating plan is very similar to the popular Atkin’s diet, with a few ounces of protein at each meal and a small amount of carbohydrates once per day.

Although I have been quite disciplined about the amount of protein I eat, it took me a while to totally give up some of the fatty foods that were slowing my weight loss. For the first several months, I continued to eat rib-eye steak, prime rib, chicken thighs, Buffalo wings and fattier cuts of meat. After hitting a plateau a couple of months ago, I went to seafood and chicken breasts. My weight loss accelerated again.

There is a history of heart disease and cancer in my family, so I plan to continue eating lean. I like eating this way.

Over the course of the year that I have been working out, I also started liking the weight lifting. I plan to start on a workout plan to build muscle when I finish losing the body fat. It took me several months to start enjoying the cardio workouts on the treadmill, and for several months I did everything I could to avoid it. I finally crossed that hurdle about three months ago and now I do six or seven cardio sessions in the gym each week. In the last two months I have started going to the gym twice a day every day. I am doing stair-climb training every Saturday at the Bank of America in Tampa, and I have started jogging two miles to the grocery store on Sundays. It has been interesting to see my progress change from merely a desire to lose weight a year ago to being fit, athletic and eating healthy.

HURDLES: After decades of using food for rewards, comfort, entertainment and socializing, it takes a concerted effort to leave all of that behind and use food only for nutrition.

At one point I hit a plateau and considered taking a month off from the workouts. This could have derailed my entire effort. Having encouragement from and accountability to a personal trainer is a big plus for someone who has had decades of inactivity and poor eating habits.

Another major hurdle was for me to start believing I could be fit and active. My original goal when I started was to get to 250 pounds. After working with the trainers at RobZFitness, I decided I wanted to be fit like all of them. Within the first few weeks, I revised my weight goal down to 220, and now my goal is to get to about 207, which should put me at 10 percent body fat. I believe this is what I weighed as a senior in high school.

GOING THE DISTANCE: I now enjoy being physically fit. Participating in stair-climbing events put on by the American Lung Association gives me motivation to compete against others in my age group. After I reach my goal weight and build more muscle, I want to bench press at least 250 pounds.

BEST ADVICE: Get started. If you can afford a personal trainer, get one. If you can’t, buy the Atkin’s book on weight loss and start doing some physical activity as regularly as possible. Make yourself sweat everyday. Stop eating in restaurants and prepare your own healthy food. If I can do it, anybody can. It’s only a matter of desire and commitment.