I’ve had a successful career in IT for over 30 years, working across multiple industry sectors such as financial, pharmaceutical, and media. I’ve held positions like the former SVP of Enterprise Information Technology at Cablevision and the Chief Technology Officer of the recently acquired SaaS platform, Operative Media, Inc. My ambitious mentality has always pushed me to find the next big thing in business. However, when it came to my personal life, my health often took a backseat.

Embarking on my Health Journey

In my younger years, I was an athlete, a martial arts competitor who also played competitive baseball. But as I transitioned into the work arena, my time for the active hobbies I once enjoyed became limited. Sitting behind a desk day after day led me to gain weight. As time went on, I found myself unhappy. By the age of 40, I weighed 350 pounds, was diagnosed with type two diabetes, and had dysplasia in both of my hips. It was at this stage in my life when I decided that I needed to make a lifestyle change.

Over the course of the 7-8 years that followed, I lost about 80-90 lbs of weight, but I never experienced that feeling of wellness or found myself in the range I wanted to be in to feel comfortable. During this time, I hit another roadblock. I was involved in a major car accident that shattered my collarbone. This was the first time in my life when I started to feel feeble. As I neared the age of 50, I realized that time was not slowing down. I was getting older, and now with this serious injury and excess weight, I wasn’t ready to be too old to keep up with my children, nor was I ready to give up. I never found any real consistency with my health, and often experienced the dreaded “yo-yo” effect of dieting. I needed something different, something that would help me better myself once and for all.

A Different Approach to Wellness

I started searching the web for ways to gain my strength and health back by looking for mobility workouts, and workouts about improving posture. I came across a TEDx Talk from Transformation Specialist Angelo Poli about technology’s impact on our posture. In this moment, I knew this was my guy. After some preliminary research on Poli, I discovered that not only was Poli an expert in Neuromuscular Re-education (Posture and Alignment), but also an expert in nutritional sciences. He soon learned that Poli had founded a company called MetPro (Metabolic Profiling), which provide concierge nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle coaching.

I immediately scheduled a call with Poli and his team at MetPro. Over the course of the next few days, I spent time on the phone with my nutritional coach discussing a diet strategy that worked for my current physical ability and lifestyle. After discovering MetPro, I knew this was something that would help and allow me to stay focused on a regimen that was guided. I could no longer train like I did when I was 28. My knowledge in this space needed to be fortified.

My MetPro coach and I first started off slowly on restoring my range of motion. Within a 3-week period, I already started to feel a whole lot better. During this time, Poli and his team of experts used my MetPro ID to make small adjustments in my diet phase to maximize my results. From there, we were off and running. With daily check-ins, meal prepping and helpful tips along the way, within one month I had tremendous progress, and by month two I was in the groove with the program.

Adapting to the MetPro System

With the help of my coaches and the concierge service, I was able to adapt to the MetPro system fairly easily. While traveling for business or vacation, MetPro’s concierge service helped me navigate my meals and business dinners by providing specifics from the restaurants I was dining at. I also got in the habit of packing healthy snacks for in-between meals. After a while, I understood how to pick out meals while traveling, and what I needed to eat in order to stay on track. MetPro’s concierge service was extremely helpful for me because I never felt as if I was “off” the program. Although I wasn’t able to measure out each meal while on the road – like I would at home – I always had the support of my coaches to keep me accountable.

Achieving Remarkable Results

At Age 50, I have lost over 100+ pounds and kept the weight off. I have more energy, am sleeping better, can still outrun my 14-year-old in a foot race, am in a wonderful relationship and recently was a part of an exit with a company valued just under $200 million. I believe that due to my commitment to the MetPro lifestyle, I have improved my quality of life. My experience managing my health gave me more than weight loss and strength, it bettered my relationships, changed the way I handled business and altered my outlook on life.

Learning from the Journey

My journey back to health was not an easy one. Through mental and physical plateaus, I looked to the support of my coaches to help keep me moving. “Angelo and his team’s positive-can-do-attitude was infectious”, I say. This energy, encouragement and positive attitude was important for my success. My MetPro coaches never allowed me to get down on myself, and they always had an option and approach to breakthrough both mental and physical plateaus.

The Next Chapter of My Health

Today at 50 years young, I’m not looking to get ripped (although I know I could do it), I’m looking to maintain my health. I no longer stress over the progress or beat myself up about obtaining fast results – instead, I focus on my overall well-being.

Advice When Considering Weight Loss

For someone who wants to embark on this journey, you need to identify what it is you want, not only in the program but in life, and what your level of commit is. Not many people make it back when you have let yourself go that far – when you get yourself to the point of being morbidly obese. It’s a really big challenge to make it back and not many people do. Understand yourself and what your level of commit is to make a life change – focus on that. Be kind to yourself and make a change that makes yourself better, even if it’s one small thing. Time is going to pass anyway, so you might as well be doing something to better yourself along that time period