×

16th annual Fitness Challenge rumbles onto the scales

LEFT:Chris Gilger, left, of the Heavy Decisions — playing for the Warren Family Mission — weighs in Thursday at St. Joe’s at the Mall in Niles as the 16th annual Tribune Chronicle / Mercy Health Fitness Challenge begins. Shirley Lisk, center manager, records the weight. Twenty-five five-member teams are trying to lose the greatest percentage of their starting weight over eight weeks to win the bulkiest prizes for their favorite charity. Tribune Chronicle / Burton Cole

OK, losers, it’s on.

The 2017 Tribune Chronicle / Mercy Health Fitness Challenge tickled — or perhaps squashed — the scales at a combined mass of 28,197.25 pounds.

Initial weigh-ins for the 25 teams were Thursday and for the next eight weeks, the 125 players from across the Mahoning Valley plan to exercise, pay attention to nutrition and shed the pounds to beef up the bottom lines of local charities.

The 10 teams that shed the greatest percentages of their starting weights by March 16 gain the bulkiest shares of the prize money — $1,195 for last year’s champion team — for the nonprofit service groups of their choice.

Along the way, players will kick-start healthier habits that most hope they can continue.

Not every player is losing weight just to look better.

“I had gotten injured at work,” Chris Gilger of the Heavy Decisions said after weighing in Thursday at St. Joe’s at the Mall in Niles. “I broke my shoulder and ankle. I put weight back on.”

He said he lost 23 pounds three years ago and kept it off for two years — “until I got hurt.”

Now he’s facing more surgery to repair the damage from injuries, followed by rehab work.

“So I need to get the weight off for surgery,” Gilger said. “It’s just harder when you carry too much weight.”

Gilger said he plans to follow a low-carb diet, with a goal of dropping 25 pounds. “I want to go down to 215, 220, that range,” he said.

His teammate, Mark Wood, lost more than 100 pounds five years ago. Over time, a few of those pounds crept back on. The Fitness Challenge offers the camaraderie and accountability of teammates and competition to get back on track, he said.

“My wife is on another team,” Wood said. “We’re encouraging each other.”

That’s big, said Cynthia Cairns, captain of the St. Joe’s Wellness Center teams. She offered a few words of her own to competitors: “Move more and put the fork down. Encourage your team members to stay on track. We are worth it.”

Fat Facts

The heaviest team weight award — if we celebrated such a thing — goes to Four and a Half Full-Grown Men, who tromped the scales at a combined 1,492.5 pounds.

Eighteen of the 25 teams checked in at more than 1,000 pounds, ranging from the aforementioned chart-toppers down to the nearly svelte Mission Possible’s 1,062.75 pounds.

Six teams run in the 900-pound range, spanning from the PsyCare Hungry Gamers’ 991 pounds to Because We Can’s 902 pounds.

The featherweights of this year’s competition, and the only team to spin the dials at less than 900 pounds, is St. Joe’s Wellness Center, at a meager 833.25 pounds.

Why are they even in the Challenge? “We are all getting older and are overweight,” Cairns said. “Most of our work is fairly sedentary. We want to improve our health and not become cardiac patients like those in our clinics — to become role models for our patients.”

Tips and Tasty Tidbits

So what’s the big deal about losing weight, anyway?

“The more an individual is above his or her ‘ideal’ weight range, the higher the risk for developing what we refer to as the ‘Top 5’ health conditions impacted by weight: diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides and sleep apnea,” Kim Triveri, registered dietitian for Mercy Health-Youngstown, said.

“Certainly, weight isn’t the only factor that drives our health; it’s also impacted by nutrition, level of fitness, whether we have a sedentary lifestyle, and so on. But an unhealthy weight can lead to a variety of disease processes.”

The key is to make weight loss part of a healthier lifestyle.

“We’re big cheerleaders for even incremental weight loss,” Triveri said. “Even a pound of weight lost can have some impact. For example, for an individual who is obese, one pound of weight loss can remove four to seven pounds of pressure from their joints, like their knees. That can be significant.

“If an individual compares his or her current weight to the ideal weight range, an average loss of about 10 percent of excess body weight has the potential to positively impact disease processes, as well as lower dosage of certain medications.

“In short, small changes matter,” Triveri said. “Instead of being overwhelmed by the idea of making radical changes, think about it in terms of making one small change each week of the year. By the end of the year, you’ve made 52 changes that can positively impact your health. That makes a difference.”

Food Labels

Where did they come up with those crazy, clever and sometimes-mysterious names? This week, Mary Bigley explains her group’s:

“Our team name, Heavyweights, comes from the movie ‘Heavyweights,’ the movie with the teens at the fat camp and they try to get rid of the crazy fitness trainer played by Ben Stiller,” Bigley said. “I asked my son for a team name and he just watched the movie on Netflix.”

Groups We’d Like to Take to Dinner

Each Fitness Challenge team selected a nonprofit organization for which it is playing. This week’s spotlight turns on the Islamic Society of Greater Youngstown, the group chosen by Waist Away.

“ISGY as a nonprofit promotes friendly relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the community in addition to promoting goodwill, understanding, fellowship and tolerance among Muslims,” team captain Lucine Saleh said. “ISGY’s mission relates to every member on Waist Away’s team.

“Also, what is better than giving back to a community charity and making a difference than by just working out?”

Smacking of the Lips

Every week, we offer teams a chance to call each other out with smack talk or to chew on anything else that’s on their minds.

This week, Mike Rossi of Four and One-Half Full-Grown Men offers this simple advice to all players who are not on his team: “Eat.”

bcole@tribtoday.com

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
     

COMMENTS

[vivafbcomment]

Starting at $4.85/week.

Subscribe Today