Husband, father, turns to healthy lifestyle

ST. LOUIS (NNPA) - "I just got tired of being tired," is how Ron Wilson described the day he decided to make a healthy change in his life.In 2002, after working for years as a custodian in a North St. Louis County school district, in 2002, the 5-foot-7-inch Wilson was out of a job, out of energy and crushing the scales at 280 pounds.

"I was about 245 when I was working - then I got lazy," Wilson said, acknowledging that he was already in "super heavyweight status" before he was laid off. He knew his girth and appetite were out of proportion, but it took reading between the lines of the sweet and gentle response of his wife, Tina Wilson - to inspire him to take better care of himself.

"I would ask her, 'Do you feel that I'm too big?' She would, in a soft way, say 'kind of - but I don't mind,'" he said. "It was weighing heavily on my mind because my whole family has a history of high blood pressure and diabetes and everybody in my family was overweight."

With four active young children, Kalyah, Ronald III, Lisa Marie and Darryl, Wilson was having a hard time keeping up. His body weight turned simple tasks into short-winded, complex chores.

"I would have to hold my breath and count to five to tie my shoes," Wilson explained. "If I didn't make it, I had to come back up for air. That's how bad it was. I had to make a decision."

His "decision" included driving past rather than driving into his beloved fast-food restaurants, baking rather than frying foods at home and portion control. About a month after the water weight came off, Wilson started exercising with weights downstairs in his Spanish Lake home.

"I wanted to get down to 175. I wanted to be skinny," Wilson said. When the weight wasn't coming off fast enough, Wilson said his training-camp mode kicked in. "When football season would start, I would go outside and start running around. I would do that every day," Wilson said. That was a few years ago.

Through determination and personal commitment, Wilson achieved remarkable results. It took almost a year and a half to lose all the weight, but he did it. He got to his "skinny" weight of 170, thanks to his wife Tina.

"She was my inspiration. She was my jumpstart by telling me my belly was just a little too big," Wilson said. "The greatest accomplishment for me is I wanted to be healthy for my kids. I want to be around for them -loving life and more activities."

His regimen has changed. When a new Gold's Gym opened up in Florissant, he joined and works out one to two hours, four mornings a week before going to work and on Saturdays. This way, he gets his exercise and keeps evenings free for his wife and children.

Since working out at Gold's, Wilson said he has "better definition and more muscle tone and a lot of the things that I couldn't do at home, I do it here and I get better results-strengthening the weak areas in my workout."

When Wilson started to change his lifestyle, he was wearing size 52 pants. A much better fit, Wilson now maintains a healthy weight of 190 and wears size 36 pants. Former coworkers and people he's known for years hardly recognize him.

"A lot of people tell me it looks like I lost another whole person," Wilson said. "My wife thinks I'm a little conceited since I lost the weight, but I tell her, 'I just want to look good for you.'