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Two Canton
residents will share their journey to healthier lifestyle with
Citizen readers
By Suzanne Doherty
Hegland
Citizen Staff
High blood
pressure. Low self-esteem. Flabby stomach. Tight jeans. The
motivations to lose weight and get in shape can be as diverse as
those facing the challenge. But what most dieters have in common
is the need for support and accountability. Canton residents
Kelly Moritz and Pat Murphy hope the trainers at Fitness
Together will help them achieve their goals.
***
 Many young
people will relate to the challenges faced by Kelly Moritz. The
22 year old graduated from Canton High School in 2003 and from
Smith College this past spring. For her, leaving school and
facing the professional world has been a time of “self
reflection,” a time when Moritz decided she wanted to tackle the
goal that has eluded her since she was a young teenager.
Canton
resident Pat Murphy recently faced a similar period of
self-reflection when he turned 40 this year. “Something clicked
in my head,” he said. “I have three beautiful girls…I want to be
around for their weddings.”
***
Both Moritz
and Murphy agreed to let the Citizen follow them over the
next three to four months through the ups and downs of their
weight-loss journey.
***
Kelly Moritz
has struggled with her weight since puberty, and even though she
was involved in athletics in high school, she admits that she
was always “bigger than [her] peers.” Moritz is no stranger to
dieting, having tried many programs in the past with what she
describes as “limited success.” Although she was usually able to
lose weight, she always gained it back quickly as soon as she
went back to her old habits.
Many young
adults gain weight in college, whether as a result of too much
partying, late-night pizzas or difficulty finding time to
exercise when faced with the pressure to succeed academically
and to build a strong resume. Moritz gained about 30 pounds
during her four years at Smith College for reasons that at first
might seem surprising. Smith is a women’s college, and Moritz
explained that contrary to misconceptions about women competing
with each other to be thin, “people who were always dieting were
kind of stigmatized.”
“It was kind
of nice” Moritz admitted, “to put [struggles with weight] to the
side and focus on other goals.” She explained that the culture
of Smith valued personal and academic growth over struggling to
conform to “society’s ideal” for women. For her, this meant
concentrating on her major of Comparative Literature and her
involvement in various acappella and choral groups. “I was
extremely focused on academics and performing,” she said.
Pat Murphy
also gained weight over the past few years, but under very
different circumstances. As head of RDK Engineers in Boston and
father of Katie, 10, Abby, 3 and Shealyn, 5 months, Murphy found
it very difficult to find time to take care of his health and
fitness.
 “As I’ve
gotten older and busier,” he said, “working out with the guys
just stopped.” Like many men his age, exercise has been replaced
with “hanging out with the kids and working long hours.”
Both
recently joined Fitness Together with the same goal in mind: to
find a plan that works and to stick with it.
Recently
under new ownership, Fitness Together in Canton and Sharon
offers one-on-one personal training and nutrition counseling.
Its
three-pronged approach combines cardiovascular and strength
training with a personalized nutrition plan, but perhaps most
import is its emphasis on accountability. Both Murphy and Moritz
chose FT because they knew they had to make a solid commitment
to a healthier lifestyle and felt that three sessions per week
with a trainer who will help them with their individual exercise
and diet challenges was key.
Moritz’s
trainer, Tony Midi, has tailored intense workouts with good
nutrition. “She’s worked out in the past,” Midi said of Moritz,
“and she’s in good shape.”
In addition
to the three strength-training sessions with her trainer, Moritz
will be aiming for five cardiovascular sessions. Midi’s diet
suggestions include “making sure she’s eating lots of proteins
because of her intense workouts, and staying away from sugars.”
“After only
a week there,” said Moritz, “I’m already sore!” But she likes
the idea of being held accountable to her workouts, and said she
hopes “to make exercise a part of my day, so that it becomes a
pattern.”
Both Moritz
and Murphy say the dieting part is sometimes more difficult than
sticking to the exercise. Moritz works for a publishing company
in Norwell, and “people are always bringing in snacks.”
Murphy, who
heads an engineering firm and is often traveling or meeting with
clients, faces similar food challenges at the workplace. Just
the other day, he ordered in lunch for a client meeting and had
to avoid the temptation of “chocolate chip cookies the size of
my head!”
But Murphy
says the structured food plan designed by his trainers at FT and
the fact that all of it is now online has made the program much
easier.
“The great
part of FT,” he said, “is that they give you the whole food plan
and shopping list with a two-week look ahead. You can load in
your work outs…and their meal suggestions help me figure out
what I’m going to eat all week.”
Murphy’s
trainer, Jim Medeiros, encourages him to eat five small meals
throughout the day to keep up his metabolism and to curb what he
refers to as “extra curricular eating.”
Although
they both know that lifestyle changes are not always easy to
make, Moritz and Murphy have their eyes on the prize. Moritz
wants to lose 30 pounds.
“I don’t
want my weight to hold me back,” she said. “I want to walk into
a room and be myself.” “I’d be lying if I said I don’t care what
I look like,” said Murphy, noting that the number one thing for
him is health. With a grandfather who died of a heart attack and
two parents with high blood pressure, Murphy wants to lose about
40 pounds to get down to his high school weight of 185.
***
The
Citizen will check in with Kelly Moritz and Pat Murphy next
month.
Fitness
Together is located at 575 Washington Street. For more
information, call 781.828.2232, or visit them online at
www.ftcanton.net.
March 20, 2008
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