MANSFIELD — Work, travel, eat, work out, sleep. That’s what Strive to Thrive contestant Chuck Keesee’s weekly schedule since joining the contest.
Keesee has traveled anywhere from Alaska to Hawaii every week due to his job as a district manager for Gorman Rupp.
“You can’t outwork a bad diet, I’ve learned,” Keesee said.
Married to his high school sweetheart and with three kids, Keesee has to also find time to balance his home life with everything else.
Although concerns with the coronavirus have kept people from traveling, Keesee is not one of them. This week he’s in Las Vegas for a trade show, and then he’ll go to Texas for more work-related commitments. After that he plans on taking his family on a vacation to St. George, Utah and San Diego, Calif.
He also recently traveled to Columbus for the Arnold Sports Festival, which he participated in as a white belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu.
Keesee can’t meal prep due to airplane restrictions, which can sometimes give him the temptation to eat out when he’s tired and spending two days out of the week in the airport. Finding time to work out has also been a struggle.
“For most people that are overweight, food is their comfort,” Keesee said. So when he’s tired he, “wants to go and just get something really greasy and fattening to make (himself) feel better.” However, in the back of his mind, he knows he can’t give in and settles for yogurt or fruit.
Since beginning the contest, the easiest part for Keesee has been the diet portion due to the fact that he’s competing against others and thinking twice about “going overboard” with his meals.
“Just going to drink water, those sorts of things are a challenge, but if it wasn’t for this competition, I wouldn’t be doing it,” he said.
Keesee has tried to focus a lot on a variety of different exercises with every trainer at the Ohio Health Ontario Health & Fitness Center.
“Every one of them (the trainers) has a different thing that they like to do, so I’m kind of taking all of those things and applying depending on where I’m at and what options I have,” Keesee said. “Now I’ve got this huge repertoire of options to go after.”
Keesee currently stands in fourth place after losing 4.55% of body fat so far. Because of his busy schedule and heavy traveling, he’s not aiming for first place and hopes someone else will win the grand prize of a free gym membership at the OhioHealth Fitness Centers in Mansfield.
“I’m just thankful for this opportunity,” Keesee said. “It’s been fun, it’s been educational and there’s just a lot of things I’ve got going on in my life, and this adds a whole other complexity to it. But if it’s comfortable, you’re not growing, so I figure the challenges are just going to work out better for me in the long run.”
