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Shedding pounds: Allen fitness center offers new weight-loss program

Photo Courtesy of Rachel Hedstrom – Ignite Your Inferno requires participants to write down a bad habit they want to quit or a healhty habit they want to start and post them a community board, pictured here.

Published: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 3:09 PM CST
New Year's resolutions may not carry much weight, but it's the subject they often center around.


According to a recent YouGov Omnibus survey, 37 percent of Americans who made New Year's resolutions focused on weight loss.

Fitness Together Allen owner Ray Cattaneo said he's seen a significant increase in traffic at his business since the new year began, and he's capitalizing on the renewed interest with a 21-day fitness program called Ignite your Inferno.

The program is offered in individual ($360) and group ($99) packages and blends exercise, healthy eating and accountability. At the start of the program, participants write an unhealthy habit they want to stop doing or a positive one they want to pick up on a whiteboard, pose with it for a photo and post the photo on a wall alongside those taken by other participants. The photos are also posted to the fitness center's Facebook page.

Ignite Your Inferno participants work out for 45 minutes, three times a week. The program, which starts Jan. 15 but will be available until the end of the month, also provides meal plans and individual assessments and counseling with a certified personal trainer.

Cattaneo – who co-owns Fitness Together Allen with his wife, Amy – said the commitments he's seen range from drinking your weight in ounces of water per day to giving up caffeine. The program is designed to get people on the right path, he said, so they can continue good habits throughout the year.

“Just going into a gym is not going to make you healthier,” he said. “We are proud of our clients’ success rate with real, visible change, and we know it has to do with the approach. People need to be held accountable, and they need the tools, knowledge and inspiration to make a lasting change.”

According to the National Weight Control Registry – a joint project from researchers at the University of Colorado and Brown Medical School that studies long-term weight loss maintenance – the path to weight loss is easy to discern, if not follow. There are several constants among its more than 10,000 study participants, who have lost an average of 66 pounds and kept it off for an average of 5.5 years.

The majority of those tracked changed what they ate (98 percent), increased their physical activity (94 percent), exercised about one hour per day on average (90 percent), ate breakfast (78 percent) and weighed themselves at least once per week (75 percent).

The majority of study participants (55 percent) also lost weight with the help of a program.

Cattaneo plans on introducing a program next month called Get Back in the Game with a new incentive structure. Participants will work their way down a football field and score points by achieving goals such as exercising and following nutrition guidelines.

For information on Fitness Together Allen, visit FitnessTogether.com/Allen.

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