The Transformation - Tim Bell
My name is Tim Bell. I am 56 years old; I am an entrepreneur, and a proud husband to Kelly and father of 2 awesome children. Gosh I feel like I am writing my obituary.
My father would often say, “Good stories are those told using the Readers Digest version,” in other words, get to the point. With that in mind, I will not make you suffer through the entire book on myself. I have selected a chapter called, “The Last 4 Years”.
The last 4 years or so have been a time of great difficulty, family loss, financial distress and many challenges. The loss of my father to cancer was hard for me to overcome, but there was no time to grieve as I my wife Kelly lost her father and lost the rest of her family. (That is another whole chapter by itself.) In the meantime I lost my business (as many did) to the financial implosion and had to file personal bankruptcy. We lost everything we had except our family, our faith and our friends.
I am a fighter and a competitor and there was no way I was going to let this 4 year period dictate the rest of my life or the lives of my family. I had been successful throughout my life and wasn’t going to let this tough time get the best of me. I worked on all fronts to ensure I could provide for my family and protect my family while maintaining my faith. What I did not do a good job of was to take care of myself. I was a daily cigar smoker and had put on a lot of weight. I did not exercise, I was growing old fast.
This year we were in Atlanta for the 4th of July and learned that the Peach Tree Road race was being held on the 4th. It is the biggest 10K race in the world. My brother said to me, “next year we should commit to running in it.” I said, “I am in”. The goal had been set. This was my opportunity to work on me. Of course talk is cheap and it was now late August and nothing had changed except I did quit smoking which was a start. Sunday, August 23rd I received the e-mail from Lesa from Lakeside Fitness Fit Body Boot Camp regarding the upcoming transformation contest.
That was it. It was my calling. I believe I started training on September 7th. I am very excited about the transformation that has taken place. As I am writing this, there is one day left in the contest, I have lost 40.4 lbs., more important, I feel the and see the change. It has been a difficult task but very well worth it.
My wife Kelly and daughter Sarah played a huge role in my success. Kelly helped me manage my diet as she made me her special lunches every day, of course utilizing some of the guidelines posted in Lesa’s e-mails. Sarah was making sure I went to the training sessions and also gave me crap along the way about doing the exercises the correct way.
Without these 2 special people and their support, there is no transformation. I would also like to thank Lesa, John and the staff for the overall program, the advice, the instruction and the encouraging e-mails. I learned a great deal while going through this process. A special thanks to Liz who was my trainer for most of my classes and was always encouraging. I am happy to say with the addition of my personal transformation, the next 4 year chapter in my life looks to be a bright one.
Look out Atlanta, Here I come!
