Fittest Losers battle adversity to reach halfway point

To lose weight, Liesl Ignoffo thought she'd have to spend endless hours on a treadmill.

She does run the treadmill - between all her other exercises. She also crawls on it with her hands, stretches giant rubber bands, lunges with dumbbells, jumps on boxes and straps on boxing gloves to pummel a heavy bag.

Her trainer Mark Trapp is using every trick in the book to sweat the last extra pound off Liesl's body. And it's working.

The full-time human resources executive and mother has dropped 12 pounds from her original weight of 178. She's in the thick of the fight to win the Fittest Loser Challenge, and is making steady progress.

"I'm definitely winning in my mind," she said. "I'm winning for myself, that's for sure."

Almost halfway into the 12-week weight loss contest, all five contestants are getting stronger, getting thinner and losing weight.

Each participant has a trainer from Push Fitness in Schaumburg to work them to exhaustion three days a week with an endless variety of techniques.

They use plyometrics to build power and speed. Military-style calisthenics to build endurance. Run speed intervals to pump up the heart. Aerobic and anaerobic workouts to burn calories. Boxing for an all-body workout.

It hasn't been easy. Liesl had to leave town repeatedly on business trips, but worked out on her own in hotel fitness rooms. Another contestant, Lisa Notarnicola, got sick and missed a few days. Between work and workouts, single mom Christine Reiss barely has time to see her daughter.

Despite the obstacles, the contestants have lost an average of 17 pounds in five weeks, or more than 3 pounds a week.

The two male contestants have jumped out to the lead in weight loss. They have an advantage by naturally starting with a greater percentage of muscle, which burns calories faster, even at rest.

But the winner will be measured by percentage of weight loss. The three women are close behind and have a chance to catch up as pounds get tougher to shed.

The Push trainers not only drive their clients through three workouts a week, they give them nutritional guidelines and a daily calorie limit, and have them keep track of every bite they eat in a food journal.

Push Fitness co-owner Joshua Steckler emphasizes that the participants are losing weight in a healthy, holistic way with well-rounded nutritional diets and steady weight loss.

Though the workouts are brutal, the contestants feel stronger and more energetic, like they could run through a brick wall. Judging by how hard their trainers are pushing them, they may have to before this thing is over.

Lisa Notarnicola, the cop

Lisa, a Hoffman Estates police officer, went down with a nasty respiratory infection and had to miss a few workouts.

Once she felt better she quickly got up to speed. When the weather turned warm, trainer Steve Amsden, or "Coach Steve" as she calls him, grabbed a jump rope, two 15-pound weights, and a workout band and told her to follow him outside.

They did the whole hour workout outside. It was her hardest workout but her favorite so far.

Steve likes to emphasize plyometrics ­- fast, sudden movements like jumps and short sprints, to incorporate strength and agility that can come in handy in daily use, like for Lisa, jumping out of a car to run down a criminal.

"I am fitting into my uniforms fabulously, and I even tightened up my duty belt one loop," Lisa wrote in her latest update. "I am getting in and out of the squad much easier these days, except the days after I get tortured by my coach!"

Ron Bohanek, the principal

Rob Bohanek, principal at Holmes Junior High in Mount Prospect, got discouraged early on in the contest when he plateaued on his new low-calorie diet.

But he kept doing three strength training sessions a week and three cardiovascular workouts, and cut out high glycemic foods like white flour and refined sugar in favor of whole grains, lean meat and vegetables, and has lost 25 pounds.

"He's doing awesome," trainer Ryan Le Breux said. "He's doing everything outside our training that I've suggested. Our workouts put him through an hour of hell, but he doesn't give up. He jokes that he's going to pass out, but he doesn't stop, he just keeps going."

He does up to eight different exercises in a row with no rest, then just half a minute to catch his breath before starting the next circuit.

Le Breux, a mixed martial arts fighter, has also been teaching Rob boxing and self-defense.

"The boxing takes your mind off what your body is doing," he said. "He's dripping like you threw a bucket of water on him at the end of every workout."

Eric Ronzio, he ex-jock

Trainer Joshua Steckler makes Eric Ronzio sprint until breathless and beyond on the treadmill for an anaerobic workout, in which the body burns more carbohydrates and calories.

Then he makes Eric jog, at a rate slow enough that he can still hold a conversation, an aerobic workout that burns more stored fat.

Both levels of exercise are necessary to lose weight and to make the body able to work harder and burn calories more efficiently.

"We want him to train at different intensities," Joshua said, "so his body doesn't get used to the same thing all the time."

Eric, who played basketball in college, has begun playing ball again once or twice week. He feels much lighter on his feet, and last week jumped high enough to dunk the ball for the first time in years.

Similar to the others, Eric does strength and all-around functional fitness workouts at Push three times a week, and cardio workouts three days a week on his own.

Once a week, his strength workouts focus on three weightlifting exercises: bench press, squats and dead lifts, to build muscle and measure his progress.

Eric also gets support from his wife, who encourages him to workout and cooks healthy food for his diet. She's helped him lose a contest-leading 28 pounds.

"My only regret," Eric said, "is I didn't do something like this sooner."

Christine Reiss, single mom

Christine Reiss' body has become much more cardio-efficient, her trainer Sharon Petrynek says. Her first day of working out, her heart rate skyrocketed into the 170s, but now she works out in the 150s, a good fat- and carb-burning zone.

Though she's only dropped 7 pounds on the unofficial Push scale, she's lost 3 inches off her waist already, and almost that much from her thighs.

She first had trouble holding the push-up position. Now she can hold it for more than a minute, a sign of both arm strength and core conditioning.

She initially couldn't jump very high, but now jumps a foot onto a box, and will work on doing so with one leg at a time.

She's also had to stretch with foam rolls to alleviate pain in her calves, which forced her to switch from the treadmill to bicycling and swimming three days a week.

To develop muscle tone without bulk, Sharon has Christine do weightlifting with a lot of repetitions - up to 25 - and low weight, such as 5 pounds.

"Her attitude is brilliant," Sharon said. "She's scared but she's a fighter. She looks forward to coming here every day. She loves that her body is doing things she never thought she could do."

The tally

6-foot-4 ex-jock Eric Ronzio leads the pack in weight loss percentage after five weeks through our Fittest Loser Challenge, with 28 pounds lost (or 10 percent of his body weight). Rob Bohanek is second with 25 pounds lost (8.7 percent), followed by Lisa Notarnicola (14 pounds, 7.6 percent), Liesl Ignoffo (12 pounds, 6.7 percent) and Christine Reiss (7 pounds, 3.7 percent).

<p class="factboxheadblack">Work that body</p> <p class="News">Here's a sample workout by Push Fitness. Participants do three sets of each exercise, 30 to 60 seconds per set.</p> <p class="breakhead">Squats with Overhead Dumbbell Press </p> <p class="News">(stand holding dumbbells in front of chest with arms bent; squat, as you explode upward, push weights overhead)</p> <p class="breakhead">Kettlebell Swings</p> <p class="News">(squat holding kettlebell hanging between legs; as you stand, swing bell up to eye level with arms straight, then bring back to start, controlling momentum)</p> <p class="breakhead">Traveling Push-up</p> <p class="News">(start in push-up position but with hands and feet together; move left hand and foot to wide push-up position and drop to ground; explode push-up back to center; repeat to right)</p> <p class="breakhead">Treadmill Sprint</p> <p class="News">(all-out run)</p> <p class="breakhead">Horizontal Body-weight Row</p> <p class="News">(hang from hands below a bar, body horizontal to floor, feet on ground; pull up to touch chest to bar)</p> <p class="breakhead">Jump Rope</p> <p class="News">(high speed)</p> <p class="breakhead">Decline Sit-up with Medicine Ball Rotation</p> <p class="News">(lie on 30-degree slanted bench with feet locked in above head; do sit-up, holding 8-pound medicine ball straight out in front of you; at top of sit-up rotate to left and right, and return to center; lie back and repeat)</p> <p class="breakhead">Plank with Side Step</p> <p class="News">(like push-up position, but on forearms; arms stay planted, with feet together; step to left, back to middle, then to right; works stability and core)</p>