MOST IMPROVED MAN UNDER 50. WINNER: TIM KEEGAN OF JACK STACK BARBECUE’S TEAM NO. 2. FINAL TEST SCORE: 129. CHANGE: +54 POINTS.
Tim Keegan was in sad shape last year, and he knew it. His 40s were winding down, he was carrying too much weight around, and decades of smoking had taken their toll. It was affecting just about every facet of his life: “I had become a couch potato,” he says.
Even before the Fittest Execs and Companies Challenge was issued, Keegan had made a commitment to restoring his health. But when his bosses extended the invitation to participate in the challenge, he saw the opportunity to really advance his personal goals. And he did: He dropped 22 pounds during the competition, bringing his overall weight loss to 49 pounds including the 27 pounds he lost in preceding months. He turned in a dazzling 54-point increase in his concluding health assessment score.
Reading across the line of his improvements, it’s hard to believe they aren’t from two different people: Just since October, his aerobic capacity improved by 50 percent, he dropped his triglyceride levels by fully one-third, his blood pressure fell from moderately high into the normal range—across the board, he’s a new man.
The best thing about the competition, said the burly Jack Stack pitmaster, “is the way I feel about myself as well as the new way my wife looks at me now! Not to mention what I had accomplished in just 90 days!”
The company’s support was invaluable, he said. Keegan embraced cardio training on his own and changed his eating habits, and he took full advantage of the personal trainers paid for by the company.
How would he rate the experience? “I would have to give it a 10—but, of course, I won!” he says. “It exceeded everything I had anticipated going into the program.” Now that he’s seen the dramatic changes that come with improved fitness, Keegan is a true believer who intends to keep it up: “I’m still going to the gym three times a week and eating better.”
MOST IMPROVED MAN OVER 50. WINNER: ROD TOELKES OF JACK STACK BARBECUE’S TEAM NO. 2. FINAL TEST SCORE: 118. CHANGE: +36 POINTS.
Remember Rod Toelkes? Ingram’s had a chance to visit with him in the fall, early in his Fittest Execs journey. At that point, a No. 1 finish wasn’t on his agenda; he just wanted to fine-tune a fitness regimen that wasn’t quite getting the job done.
Three months later, his 36-point improvement on health assessment scoring led the way for men over 50. And he’s living proof that dropping pounds alone isn’t the key to significant improvements in personal fitness: Working out three to four times a week, Toelkes lost only four pounds through the competition deadline. Yet his overall score rose dramatically because he lowered his triglycerides and his blood pressure, nearly doubled his leg-press capacity, raised his aerobic capacity and more than doubled his flexibility score.
It wasn’t easy. “I hate cardio, but it’s the key to dropping pounds,” Toelkes said, “I lost inches on my clothes; it helped me, at 57, realize I can really improve my health and live longer. I established a routine, and that’s why this is important.”
MOST IMPROVED WOMAN UNDER 50. (TIE) STACEY GATES OF METROPOLITAN MEDICAL SOCIETY TEAM NO. 2, AND JOYCE GOLDSTEIN OF THE DERMATOLOGY AND SKIN CANCER CENTER. CHANGE: +28 POINTS.
To anyone with more than one small child, the idea that a woman with six youngsters—including a newborn—would need a fitness program might seem laughable. But Stacey Gates, general counsel for the medical private practice (with a final score of 146) who runs with her physician husband, Lancer, was raring to go when she got the chance to take part in the Fittest Execs Challenge.
Joyce Goldstein (who scored 145), was also up for a challenge. Taking place from October through December, a period that covered all three year-ending holidays, Fittest Execs came at “the very busiest time of year for me,” Goldstein said. “I was traveling more during this period than any other time of the year. I thought if I can make time to work out now, then I definitely should be able to find time during the rest of the year.”
Joyce Goldstein competed as part of the team from the Dermatology and Skin Cancer Center in Leawood, and Stacey Gates competed on the Metro Med Team No. 2. And compete they did, ending in a dead heat for top honors in the Most Improved Woman Under 50 category. Each raised her personal fitness score 28 points over the three-month competition.
At least three times a week, Gates would log 3-4 miles running, and she saw a personal trainer two days a week. She said she and her husband have embraced the mind-set of making exercise a family affair. When weather allows, the little ones can play in the sand pit near the track they use, watching Mom and Dad get in their laps. “We love to run,” Gates said, “and we think it’s important to lead by example and make it part of a family experience.”
Goldstein was all over the fitness map, working out with a trainer twice a week, hitting the treadmill a few times a week, and mixing in various levels of swimming, skiing, scuba and hiking. One key to achieving her results, she said, was grounded largely in the motivational nature of the competition: “It was a good motivating experience,” she said. “I think the experience, improvement and recognition will motivate me to work out more regularly and harder in the future.”
MOST IMPROVED WOMAN 50 OR OLDER. WINNER: CANDACE SHELDON, GREENSOFT SOLUTIONS, INC. FINAL TEST SCORE: 138. CHANGE: +26 POINTS.
As a human resources manager for a small business, Candace Sheldon routinely wrestles with health-insurance demons. So when the Fittest Execs Challenge came calling, offering a way for companies to fight back against the steady stream of rate hikes for insurance premiums, she was ready to go.
“I think there’s a huge value to programs like this,” Sheldon said. “If a whole group of workers is healthier, it has a huge impact on insurance, the types of claims, an impact on premiums. Plus, people are in better spirits when they feel better.”
Sheldon attacked the Fittest Execs possibilities with a vengeance, embracing the P90X workout regimen and modifying her diet with counsel from a nutritionist lined up by Greensoft Solutions. “I started eating cheese sticks, strawberries and grapes,” she said, and found after a while that she couldn’t go back to her previous eating habits: “Things I used to eat, like fast-food hamburgers, I just don’t like that much any more.”
Will she stick with it? “Absolutely,” she beams, “I may cheat once in a while, but I’ve seen the difference of before and after, and I won’t go back to ‘before.’ ” 