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My name is Myron McKenzie. I am 54 years old. I have been married to Kathy for 26 years and have two children, Kara and Austin. Kara was recently married to a wonderful guy named Brian Centrella. My son Austin is a Lance Corporal with the Marine Corp in Okinawa Japan. Kathy and I are both doing P90X.

I grew up in Indianapolis Indiana. I have two sisters and one bother. About the only

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My name is Myron McKenzie. I am 54 years old. I have been married to Kathy for 26 years and have two children, Kara and Austin. Kara was recently married to a wonderful guy named Brian Centrella. My son Austin is a Lance Corporal with the Marine Corp in Okinawa Japan. Kathy and I are both doing P90X.

I grew up in Indianapolis Indiana. I have two sisters and one bother. About the only thing athletic that I did while growing up is playing baseball. I was always more interested in building things, like rockets and airplanes. My heroes growing up were astronauts. I am still very interested in anything to do with space and space travel.

My main interests in school were science and math. I went to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute Indiana and received a bachelor of mechanical engineering degree. After graduating, I got a job with the Torrington Company in South Bend Indiana. Torrington made large ball and roller bearings for all sorts of industrial applications.

I have published more than a dozen technical papers on bearing analysis techniques. I represent the USA on an ISO standards committee on bearing life rating. This international committee is comprised of the top bearing analysts in the world. I also currently chair the roller bearing committee for the Society of Tribologist and Lubrication Engineers (STLE).

After our first child, Kara, was born we moved to Torrington, Connecticut. Throughout my twenties and most of my thirties I kept in great shape by regularly swimming and body building at the Torrington YMCA.

I started my Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Connecticut when I was 37. This was a very stressful time for me. My wife and I decided to quit the YMCA and purchased our own weight equipment. I was finding it more and more difficult to find time to work out. After a month of working out at home I stopped completely. Kathy never stopped working out and to this day is in very good shape.

When I stopped working out my weight was 185 pounds. I am 6 foot tall. By 39 my weight was 210 pounds. I graduated from UCONN at 41 and weighed 220 pounds and was in terrible shape.

I stopped doing physical activities with my children. I would rarely take them swimming. I was too embarrassed to take off my shirt. I quit snow skiing because I found it too tiring and was easily hurt. There are very few pictures of me during this time. I avoided cameras and scales.

By 44, I was 235 pounds. One Sunday morning my wife wanted me to go shopping for school clothes for the kids. I convinced her that it was more important for me to prepare the septic tank for getting pumped out the next day. It was very hot and humid that day. I finished digging the hole to the cover and went inside to take a shower and cool off.

I didn’t feel good, in fact I felt horrible. I realized that something was drastically wrong with me. I opened up our Home Medical book to the page that said heart attack. I drove myself to the hospital thinking that the doctor would say that I had a bad case of indigestion. Instead the doctor told me that I had a very bad heart attack and that they were preparing a helicopter to take me to a better equipped hospital.

I now have 3 stents in my heart. The heart attack scared me and my family greatly. I lost 35 pounds over the next few months by watching what I ate and walking. Everyone told me how great I was looking. I never completely stopped eating junk food. Eventually I quit walking and my weight started going up again. By 50 it was up to 240 pounds.

The Torrington Company was purchased by the Timken Company. After a couple years Timken decided to close the facility in Torrington, CT. Some people went to Canton, Ohio and some went to Greenville, South Carolina. I was very happy to move to South Carolina. Unfortunately my weight continued to rise.

In November of 2007 I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. My weight was 261 pounds. My doctor suggested that I go to the Greenville Hospital Diabetes Clinic. My wife and I both went to an all day meeting where we learned about the disease. They gave me a card to put into my wallet that said, “I am a diabetic.” Every time that I opened my wallet I was reminded of that fact.

Going to that clinic changed my life. They gave me the tools so that I could change my life around. I decided that I would control diabetes and not the other way around. On Dec 14, 2007 I started on a diet and exercise program.

I took glucose readings 6 times a day. At first I could only walk for 20 minutes. Eventually I worked that up to an hour at least 5 days a week. I no longer ate what I knew was bad for me. I lost weight and was getting fit. My daughter was getting married in August and I wanted to look great walking her down the aisle. By August I was running 5 miles a day and was down to 190 pounds.

My knees were starting to hurt after I ran. I wanted a different exercise program. I was watching TV one day and while flipping through the channels saw an advertisement for P90X. I never really believed that people could get so fit in just 90 days. P90X was obviously an advanced exercise program. By this time I was in good cardiovascular shape. I ordered the program. Kathy and I did the pre-test and neither one of us could do pull-ups. Even so we felt that we could do the program.

After a month I cannot believe the difference. I lost another 10 pounds and 1.5” off my waist. My stomach is flat and my muscles are getting stronger. I couldn’t be happier with my progress.

On Dec 14 it will be one year since I started loosing weight and getting fit. Over the course of this year my blood pressure is normal, my cholesterol is normal, I am no longer diabetic, and I no longer have sleep apnea. Thank you Greenville Hospital Diabetic Clinic and thank you BeachBody for giving me the tools that I so desperately needed. Now it is up to me to “Bring It.”

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