For 46-year-old Dave Patrick, going to Main Street Kickboxing was a way to lose weight and get back into shape.
But with a 3-year-old son at home, getting fit was becoming a harder and harder task every day. After joining the gym in January, Patrick got the kickstart he needed. It came from nearly daily workouts and a little motivation from Main Street owner Danny Kelly.
It was frustrating for Kelly to watch his gym’s members — he calls them “students” — come into the gym every day and never change.
“I knew what they were doing here, but I didn’t know what they were doing when they went home,” Kelly said. “I don’t go home with them and it was frustrating for me to see all that hard work and no results.”
So in January — coincidentally, the same time Patrick became a member — Kelly challenged his “students.”
As part of a 90-day challenge, Kelly wanted to give his members more motivation to lose weight. Whoever dropped the most pounds within 90 days would receive a full year-long membership to the gym. The second-place finisher would receive a six-month membership and the third-place finisher received a three-month membership.
The key, though, was Kelly wanted to have some influence with what they were eating when they left the gym. To help control the members’ diets, Kelly wanted the participants to add a Visalus shake in each diet — a $100 per month cost, which Kelly partially took out of gym membership.
“I wanted people to do it the right way — and this is the right way,” he said.
Twenty-five people took part in the gym’s own version of the Biggest Loser and nearly everyone lost some weight. Most participants lost nearly 20 pounds.
“It was great to see,” Kelly said.
The big winner, though, was Patrick, who lost nearly 27 pounds during the 90-day competition.
“It’s exciting to see that weight loss,” Patrick said. “There is definitely a difference. When you are carrying around 30 extra pounds, you don’t feel so good about yourself.”
Patrick replaced two meals with the shakes, which are expected to be mixed with fruits and other items, and worked out during the gym’s core training on Tuesday and Thursday.
“I feel wonderful now,” he said. “You definitely feel and see a difference.”
And that’s all Kelly wanted to see.
As a distributor for Visalus, the success of the product in his gym is two-fold. The shakes give a much-needed boost and supplement to his members’ workouts, and his gym reaps the benefits.
But Kelly wants to give his members a belief that they can lose weight — and the shake does that.
“It was frustrating for me to see Joe Blow come in here and work out and do all this great stuff but I didn’t see the change,” he said. “He is just maintaining by doing all that. What would happen if he didn’t work out? He would blow up. If you don’t have some sort of balance in what your are eating, it’s an issue.”
He continued: “It was to get them to control their eating. A lot of people have never lost any weight in their life in their mind says they can’t do it. If this is something that actually gives them a chance to lose some weight, they will never have that mental block.”
Simply, the workout and shakes are to help people eat right, he said.
“This is a way to get them to eat something that is nutritious and simple,” he said. “They are going to get more out of it by eating right and making it a life-long decision instead of a quick fix.”
Most important, though, the shake — with a good workout plan — works, Patrick said.
“It’s great,” Patrick said. “He doesn’t push you too hard. He builds you up and makes you want to work harder. You get a lot out of it.”
Participants exchange two full meals for 120-calorie shakes that have 12 grams of protein and other necessary vitamins, Kelly said. The shakes come with more than 300 recipes.
The shakes’ goal is to force people to at least three nutritional meals a day. And no calories are wasted.
“Instead of eating McDonald’s they can have a healthy shake,” Kelly said.
The challenge was such a success, Kelly has already started the second round — giving away two iPads for those who lose the most weight — and expects to do more.
“People really enjoyed it and I want to keep going,” he said.
The second challenge started in April.
For more information, contact Kelly at Main Street Kickboxing at 931-638-1077.
