I was recently training two of my male clients at a local country club. I love these two guys, very fun, hard-working, nice, and both overweight. I put them through extremely challenging workouts consisting of high-intensity circuit training burning at least 600 calories per hour session twice a week. For the past 2 years I’ve been teaching these clients about healthy eating habits and the proper way to lose weight. Each of them needs to lose at least 25 pounds to get down to a healthy weight.

As with many people, my clients enjoy good food and great wine. What’s wrong with that, right? They over indulge, just like most people in America. I’ve been teaching them that all the exercise they do is not going to help them lose weight if they are not cutting back on their consumption of food and drink (alcohol). Of course, their weight has not changed much over these past several months because they have not been consistent with their changes in calorie consumption. It’s been disappointing for them, and for me, when stepping on the scale. When your main goal is to lose weight, you must cut back on caloric intake and change your behavior with food and alcohol.

While training my clients at their country club, an old friend of theirs was working out too. I’ll call him Jay. When my clients saw Jay they barely recognized him. In the past 6 months, this gentleman lost 77 pounds! After hugging him and congratulating their old friend, my clients asked, “How’d you do it? How’d you lose all that weight?” Jay enthusiastically said, “I stopped eating crap and cut out alcohol.” AH-HA! Thank you very much old friend! I smiled and told him that I”ve been teaching these guys this approach to weight loss for 2 years and they still haven’t embraced it! I had just met Jay a minute before and I felt so proud and happy for him. What an accomplishment!

This weight loss story is a successful one due to behavior modification or changes made in Jay’s  lifestyle choices. He changed his behavior of eating food and drinking alcohol. He stopped going to restaurants to eat so he could control what goes into his meals. He also completely cut out alcohol for 6 months. This may sound terrible to some of you, but if you are serious about making a change to your body and your health, this is a very important, yet difficult, step. Jay was consistent with his exercise program and consistent with the changes in his diet until he reached his weight loss goal.

Now that his goal has been reached, he goes out to restaurants once a week. He drinks alcohol, in moderation, once a week. He exercises regularly every week. These behavior modifications helped to change and save Jay’s life. Losing weight can be a continuous lifetime battle for some of you. It’s difficult to change your lifestyle and behaviors. However, consistency, persistence, patience, and motivation must be intertwined in your life to have a successful weight loss story like Jay’s.

I asked Jay how he feels with that 77 pounds gone. He said, “I feel great! I feel like a new man!” If you’re needing to lose weight, you have to change your behaviors with food, alcohol, and exercise. Less food, less alcohol, more exercise. Behavior modification and healthy life-long choices will certainly help you reach your goals and change your life just like Jay. Nice work, Jay!