Wellington loses more than half ton or weight

Welling­ton lost some­thing it can be proud of: 1,084 pounds of fat. Over 12 weeks, 74 peo­ple par­tic­i­pated in a Dream Team com­pe­ti­tion at Inner Cir­cle Per­sonal Fit­ness, shed­ding more than a half ton of fat.

The Dream Team is a team-based, weight-loss con­test. One pound of fat lost, or one pound of mus­cle gained, and team mem­bers got a point for their team. Teams could also accrue points by mov­ing through weight loss categories.

The “Biggest Loser”-type of a weight-loss pro­gram has been made pop­u­lar on national TV, but the peo­ple of the Welling­ton area started par­tic­i­pat­ing in their own backyards.

After a meet­ing with a fit­ness trainer from Erie, Pa., Joe Bock­more, owner of Inner Cir­cle Per­sonal Fit­ness, cre­ated the Dream Team.

“When we started a year and a half ago, it was kind of slow,” Bock­more said. “But the Dream Team went from nine teams and 40 par­tic­i­pants last year to 20 teams and 74 peo­ple this year.”

Over a 12-week period, teams made up of two to six peo­ple made a com­mit­ment to change their bodies.

“There were teams of friends, co-workers. We had mar­ried and dat­ing cou­ples, sib­ling teams, sons and daugh­ters, there were a lot,” Juliann Bock­more, Joe’s sis­ter said.

Using before-and-after pic­tures and record­ing num­bers in their per­sonal files, the teams could really get involved in the process. Each week, on-site fit­ness train­ers helped any indi­vid­ual who wanted an in-depth look at the weight-loss pro­ce­dure, by going over the num­bers in their fold­ers. If any­one wanted to mod­ify their rou­tine, a change was made. Once the mea­sure­ments were taken, the team scores were added and dis­played on a big dry-erase board at the facility.

Inner Cir­cle broke the team mem­bers, who were of all dif­fer­ent ages and body types, into five cat­e­gories rang­ing from extra lean to obese. There is a machine at the fit­ness facil­ity that works as both a scale and a fat mea­sur­ing instrument.

Par­tic­i­pants would step onto the scale, and their height/weight/and age would deter­mine their body fat per­cent­age. Based on those num­bers, team mem­bers were scored and cat­e­go­rized, and par­tic­i­pants with sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments could jump cat­e­gories for bonus points. Also, teams with fewer mem­bers had their point totals adjusted to cre­ate equal­ity with teams that had more members.

In the end, Team Hunger lost 49 pounds of fat and accu­mu­lated enough team points to win the Dream Team com­pe­ti­tion, oust­ing hard com­pe­ti­tion like the Hun­gry Hun­gry Hip­pos, Mid-Life Mom­mas and Chubby and Dangerous.

One team actu­ally lost 85 total pounds, but didn’t have enough total team points to win the grand prize of a trip to Kala­hari Indoor Water­park, Inner Cir­cle Under Armor Hood­ies, and pos­si­bly the most impor­tant of all, end­less brag­ging rights.

“The win­ners will also get to be put on a plague here in the build­ing,” Juliann said.

The team idea really helped every­one get closer to their goal.

“Before, peo­ple weren’t los­ing as much, but when they went on a team they lost a lot more… they didn’t want to let their team down,” Bock­more said.

The pop­u­lar­ity of events like Dream Team forced Inner Cir­cle to expand.

“We went from 900 square feet to our build­ing now, which is 1,200 square feet,” remarked Bockmore.

Located at 640 S. Main St., Inner Cir­cle wants to infuse close-to-home work­outs with cre­ative and fun work­out plans. Along with the Dream Team com­pe­ti­tion, Inner Cir­cle also offers Zumba dance classes, line danc­ing, and YogaFit, among others.

by ADAM FOX

Enter­prise reporter

Posted by Jason Hawk on May 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.