Two years ago, Brian Meifert would have laughed in the face of anyone who told him he would run five miles during his lunch break at work.
“A lot of people I work with probably would have laughed, too,’’ he said.
At 490 pounds, he didn’t do very much running at all, except when chasing his son, Keith, around in the morning, playing tag while waiting for the school bus.
“I couldn’t outrun him, at 6 years old,’’ Brian Meifert said.
That’s when he realized he needed to make a change in his life, so that he could be around for and be able to keep up with Keith, now 8, and his daughter, Lilian, 5.
Overweight since childhood, Brian Meifert, now 39 and 6 feet 6 inches tall, said he’d been lucky that his weight hadn’t caused him other health problems, but he knew his good fortune could only last so long.
“My blood pressure had been good, but the odds of that continuing were low,’’ he said.
So he began using the fitness room at F5 Networks in Lowell, where he works as a software engineer, and started taking walks around his neighborhood in the morning. He began tracking the amount of calories he was eating each day, which he said were around 4,000 to 5,000 daily, and brought it down to about 2,300. He began questioning whether he was eating because he was hungry or simply bored. He cut soda out of his life, stopped having snacks between meals and restricted himself from going back for seconds. When going out for lunch with coworkers, he traded French fries for broccoli. Also, no more dessert, he said, unless it’s a special occasion.
In June 2010, he purchased a family membership at Orchard Hills Athletic Club in Lancaster. He began slowly, using low impact elliptical machines and exercise bikes and walking around the indoor track. Starting in this manner was important, he said, so as to not put too much strain on his knees, an area of the body greatly affected by excess weight.
That’s when he started seeing real progress, he said.
He rearranged his schedule so that he could work out early in the morning, 2.5 hours every day, five days a week.
In April 2011, he began running outside, first running one mile and slowly moving up to six miles in July. In August, he ran his first 5K race.
Brian Meifert reached his goal of losing 220 pounds in September, and set a new goal of losing 240, which he surpassed in December.
As of now, he weighs 240 pounds, roughly half of what he weighed at the start of his journey, and has gone from a 62-inch waist to a 32.
“I haven’t weighed this much since I was in the eighth grade, and I was 5‘9’’ then,’’ he said. “I’ve never been in shape until now.’’
