The Post talks with six New Yorkers who were looking for and found fitness and diet plans that work, helping them to shed pounds and gain confidence and hope in 2018.
By the end of 2016, Richard Colon was stressed out and his weight had ballooned to 350 pounds.
His girlfriend, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship, had just suffered a miscarriage: “It was devastating,” says the 30-year-old artist. “We had already starting to look for baby clothes.”
The strain resulted in their breakup. He fell into a deep depression, which he medicated with fast food. He also began skipping workouts — which wasn’t exactly easy to do, since he worked the front desk at Church Street Boxing in Tribeca. “Here I was, this fat guy working at a gym,” he says.
Then, he had the wake-up call he needed: He learned his 57-year-old mother’s kidney was failing, and she’d need dialysis. His father, too, was overweight.
“I knew I didn’t want to be like that,” says Colon, who moved from Queens to his parents’ home in Connecticut last year to help take care of them.
Luckily, he was already in the right spot — trainers at work offered to help get him back into shape. With their help, he started boxing, and also teamed up with a regular at the gym, Reza Rezvi, who held him accountable for good nutrition.
“He would call me out of nowhere and say, ‘How are you eating?’ ”
‘Now I don’t have to go to the big and tall stores.’
Rezvi was a great role model. Instead of being overly rigid, “he would show me his mess-ups so I wouldn’t get disappointed in myself,” says Colon.
Colon went from eating fried chicken and pizza most days to boiled chicken with quinoa and oatmeal with wheat germ. These days he’s 270 pounds, down 80 from his highest weight. “Now I don’t have to go to the big and tall stores,” he says. “I can shop in the regular mall.”
Even better, he turned his pain into a source of empowerment.
“I didn’t have to focus on the negative energy of my relationship and my life,” he says. “All of it helped make me stronger.”
Tip: Find someone who can hold you accountable, like a nutritionist or a healthy friend. “It’s humbling to come to someone and say, ‘I need help,’ ” says Colon. “But that’s what will get you through the hard times.”