Back at the beginning of 2017, at just 58 years of age, Salvation Army member, Arthur Crago had had a heart attack, was overweight, diabetic and had high blood pressure. His ill health encouraged him to make a change to his lifestyle and with his wife being an avid gym user, he decided that the change he was going to make was to increase his exercise levels and join the gym.
Arthur became a member at Congleton Leisure Centre and changed his diet. He sought help in the gym from Fitness Instructor Roy who gave Arthur tips on varied exercises, training patters and form. Like most of us, Arthur’s greatest diet downfalls previous to his lifestyle change, were takeaways and cheese. So, Arthur made a conscious effort to strip these out of this diet as much as possible. Arthur now only allows himself 1 Takeaway per week on a Saturday night as a reward for all of his hard work and commitment to the gym and his diet during the week.
Just 12 months later, Arthur now finds himself 5 stone lighter, with a normal blood pressure and only having to take 1 diabetes tablet per day opposed to the three he used to take daily for diabetes, and 1 for blood pressure. Arthur commented that his diabetes nurse is ‘over the moon’ for him and his wife says she’s got a ‘brand new husband’.
Arthur now works in a job that requires him to walk 8-10 miles per day and he does this with ease, sometimes even jogging his way around. He no longer snores, much to his wife’s delight, he no longer struggles with breathing and sleeps a lot better. Arthur also commented: “When I started my lifestyle change, I was cutting out loads of things from my diet. Now I exercise a lot, I can eat more than I did, yet still stay thin”. He continues: “Sometimes you feel a bit like you can’t be bothered to go to the gym, but once you make the effort to change your mentality, you’ll thank yourself for it. Every week before I was saying ‘diet starts Monday’ … and it never did, When I had a heart attack, I realised that my daughter is only 24 with no kids, and I wanted to make sure I grew old to see my grandchildren”.
Don’t let poor health be the reason why you make an incredible lifestyle change like Arthur, make healthy changes to your lifestyle with us and prevent ill health for the future. If you are looking to become healthier and more active, contact your local leisure centre and let us help you on your journey.