Brett Christensen wouldn’t exactly say that losing 50 pounds was a miracle, but he does see the Lord’s influence in his determination to get in shape after letting his weight escalate to an unhealthy 265 pounds over the course of the past several years.
You might say that Christensen, the director of youth and family ministry for Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Sun Prairie, has found religion when it comes to fitness, having discovered a renewed dedication to regular exercise and healthy eating. And that dedication has paid dividends in the form of increased energy, greater stamina, and two first-place awards for Most Improved Man and Most Weight Lost in IB’s Get Fit Challenge.
| “One of the things I’ve been thinking about was how I could bring this to the congregation, and I was thinking about, maybe after the first of the year, implementing a Get Fit Challenge for them.” — Brett Christensen |
“Taking care of the body that God gave us is something that we’re all charged with,” said Christensen, who accepted his awards on Oct. 22 at the In Business Expo & Conference. “And just like everything else, we fall short. We’re sinful people and we’re weak people, and sometimes life can be tough and unexpected, and certainly it was with me.”
Any professional with a demanding and stressful job is faced with something of a dilemma: How do you attain the kind of peak health you need to function properly at work when leisure time can seem as scarce as a balmy day in November?
For Christensen, it took a conversion of sorts — but in his case, it didn’t so much involve an epiphany as a quiet dedication to a new way of life.
“One of the things I learned [during the challenge] was that fitness and getting healthy isn’t one of these answers to a sparkly ad on TV to do something in a month,” said Christensen. “It’s a lifestyle change. And when I got into it, it became part of my daily routine. After getting into it for a couple of weeks, it just became part of what I did. And I wasn’t so focused on the end result as much as I was just letting in a new lifestyle.”
According to Christensen, that dedication came out of the realization that he wasn’t able to interact with his kids the way he used to, and that his work with the youth he served at his church may have been suffering as well.
“One of the aspects of my job is primarily working with sixth- through 12th-grade youth, and over the last five years or so, I’d found myself very busy and made taking care of myself a lower priority,” said Christensen. “I’d lost energy and found myself being able to interact less than I had before. So now that I’ve lost the 50 pounds, I’ve found energy I hadn’t had in years, and also stamina, and it’s also helped me as far as getting through a day mentally, too. Everything is just a little easier.”
Finding support
During his six-month fitness journey, Christensen used an app called MyFitnessPal, which allowed him to track his calories from both his mobile phone and his desktop computer. And because he had a shoulder injury that made it tough for him to do a wider variety of workouts, he got into running, relying on another app called Couch-to-5K, which allowed him to go from being more or less sedentary to getting in good enough shape to race.
“What I liked about that [app] was you could sync music to it, and it was very forgiving if you missed a [workout], or if one didn’t go well, you could go back,” said Christensen. “I burned through that and I just went onto the next one, Couch-to-10K, and by the time I got done with that, I was ready for a 10K, and then a half-marathon.”
Unlike some participants in IB’s Get Fit Challenge — particularly those in the team challenge — Christensen spent most of his time working out solo. But he did feel supported, as well as inspired to evangelize just a bit about his experience. Because he works with so many families and young people, he’s been able to talk to many in his congregation about healthy eating, and his regular workouts have provided a good example for others.
In fact, Christensen says he’s considering adapting the Get Fit program for members of his church.
“One of the things I’ve been thinking about was how I could bring this to the congregation, and I was thinking about, maybe after the first of the year, implementing a Get Fit Challenge for them,” said Christensen. “Maybe we could add a spiritual component to it to help feed them spiritually as well.”
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Despite losing 50 pounds over the past six months, Christensen notes that he’s definitely not done yet. He’d like to lose around another 10 pounds to get down to a “good, comfortable” 205 pounds. That will take a continued dedication to fitness, because his workday can sometimes stretch to 12 to 14 hours, and he’s often forced to carve out time in the middle of the day to get to the gym.
That said, he has a message for other busy professionals who may feel like their workdays are too demanding, stressful, and just plain short to accommodate a regular fitness regimen.
“Well, I was one of those people, and this is definitely a lifestyle change,” said Christensen. “I mean, it’s not something that you change overnight; it’s something that has to be decided purposefully. So for some people, they do it because maybe they have high cholesterol and they have to make a change or there’s going to be a problem, and that’s their motivation. Other people, like me, they’re not able to do some of the things, like hanging out with their kids or doing certain things in their job, that they had done previously, and so that motivates them to make a change.
“Finding that thing that’s going to help motivate you to make a change, and then just putting those tools in place that are going to help you stay motivated and connected, is what worked for me.”
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