Weight, Jan 2008: 325 lbs

CKO Starting Weight, Sept 2008: 296 lbs

Starting Body Fat: 47%

Current Weight: 265 lbs

Goal Weight: 175 lbs

Name any diet or supplement, and Nicole Fingerhut has tried it. From Deal-A-Meal to Atkins, Weight Watchers to South Beach, Metabolife to Trimspa, Nicole has tried it all! But no matter what she did, the weight would come back on – and then some.

“We are Italian, and we love pasta and anything fried in olive oil!” Nicole says of her family. She had never learned about healthy food habits, and even after going on Weight Watchers, she was using foods like butter, bagels, dressing and soda to fill up her Points allotment for the day. Nicole endured panic attacks, sleep apnea, and trouble breathing. It even got to the point that she’d have to look at pictures of restaurants before going to see if their chairs were big enough for her to sit in.

One day, something finally clicked. Nicole had a classmate from the College of Staten Island who would come to class from the gym every day and was in peak physical shape. One day, she walked into class and offered Nicole a wedge of the orange she was snacking on. “Call me crazy, but it was like that fruit gave me the knowledge to actually think about what I am putting into my body. If I ate what she ate, maybe I would look like her?”

Her classmate helped her put together an eating and exercise plan that Nicole loosely followed. Nicole says it helped her “treat my body more like a temple and less like a garbage disposal.” When her boyfriend proposed to her, Nicole felt the additional pressure to lose weight for her 2010 wedding. Though she started the year on Weight Watchers, the real boost she needed came in the form of CKO Bayonne in September 2008.

On the 10-week program, Nicole learned to eat smaller meals more frequently. She also began to adopt eating healthier foods that are low on the glycemic index like vegetables, chicken and other lean proteins. Of course, her workouts have been cranked up a notch thanks to CKO’s intense classes!

Nicole says the best part of CKO is that she is finished in one hour, as opposed to other gyms where she is there for two hours to get all her cardio and strength in. “I get a 100% full body workout in an hour – that works well, because I am a busy woman!” The variety also appeals to Nicole; she never gets bored in class like she would at other gyms and has become noticeably stronger since joining.

She hopes to lose 110 lbs total by the end of next year, and is already 37 pounds toward her goal. Having just completed the 10-week program, Nicole “just signed up for another year at CKO, so losing those 110 pounds next year is looking more like a reality than a fantasy!”