More than 500,000 people in the United States accepted the Body For Life Challenge in 1999.

Ten were named grand champions and awarded $100,000.

Seven of the ten spent Monday in Warsaw.

Gary and Amy Arbuckle, Allen Bieber, Tom Archipley, Erin Lindsey, Pete Holter and Lezlee Jones were guests of Keith Reinholt, founder of the Warsaw Body For Life Club. The Body For Life Challenge is a 12-week physical conditioning program.

The champions worked out at the YMCA in the afternoon then spoke to the club that night. They came on the behalf of the late Ben Bibler of Warsaw, like them one of the 10 grand champions.

Their stories were similar. Tired of who they were and the way they looked, they decided to get in shape. The seven sitting around a table at the YMCA were slender, physically fit males and females, proof that the Body For Life Challenge worked.

Bieber was one of the more extreme cases. Bieber's story published in the November 2000 Muscle Media magazine.

Two weeks before his 39th birthday, his wife told him she loved him but that he was killing himself. He weighed 298 pounds. She told him 300 was the limit.

He agreed. His son showed him an issue of Muscle Media magazine and urged him to take the challenge. He agreed to try it.

The Body For Life philosophy centers around following eating, exercise and weight-lifting guidelines for 12 weeks. All workouts are less than one hour a day, and protein supplements are available. Pictures of contestants are taken at the start of the 12 weeks and then at the end.

Bieber took not one challenge but three back-to-back-to-back, 36 weeks worth of conditioning. He weighed 298 pounds; less than 10 months later, he weighed 174 pounds. He lost 124 pounds.

"I had tried everything," he said. "When I saw the Body of Works video and Lynn Lingenfelter, who contracted HIV and did it, I couldn't look myself in the mirror.

"If he did it, there was no excuse why I couldn't do it."

Lingenfelter is on a Body For Life promotional video. He was injured in a November 1983 hunting accident and needed 38 pints of blood. Four years later, he tested positive for the HIV virus as some of the blood was tainted. It developed into full-blown AIDS in 1995. After being ready to give up at one point, Lingenfelter turned to Body For Life, and it changed his life.

"It may not extend my life in years," he says in a story on www.bodyforlife.com, "but the quality of my life has been greatly improved."

The toughest part, several of the grand champions said, was making the rock-solid commitment to accepting the challenge and following through, shelving the excuses.

"You have to take your before picture," Amy Arbuckle said. "That serves as a motivator."

Said Archipley: "I avoided making the decision to accept the challenge for seven weeks. I listened to what my reasons were for not accepting the challenge, and they stunk."

This was only the second time that these seven winners have been together.

They were together recently at the EAS Headquarters in Golden, Colo., on an all expenses-paid trip. EAS - Experimental and Applied Sciences - is the organization that offered the Body For Life Challenge, and the winners were honored there over a weekend.

But being in Warsaw on Monday was different.

"They did this on their own," Reinholt said. "The last time, that was paid for by EAS."

They agreed to come in memory of the 22-year-old Ben Bibler. The late Bibler was one of the 10 grand champions, but he died before he could claim his award. Instead, the award was given to his parents, Bruce and Roberta Bibler, in the form of a $100,000 scholarship.

Bibler died Aug. 23, 1999, in an early morning diving accident that broke his neck and left him brain-dead. He died before his paperwork was completed for the Body For Life Challenge.

Reinholt told Bibler, whose body was on life support, he would complete the information and send it to the EAS headquarters. Reinholt, then 39, had become close friends with the 22-year-old Bibler, a fellow employee. They lifted weights at 5 a.m. and drank protein shakes throughout the day.

Now Reinholt finds himself the leader of the Warsaw Body For Life Club, which boasts 350 to 400 members. Bieber lives in Tucson, Ariz. A town the size of Warsaw has more than 350 Body For Life Club members, but Tucson doesn't have a Body For Life Club. Bieber hopes to get one started. The same goes for Denver, Colo. A Body For Life Club does not exist there now, but plans are in the making to form one.

"I had no expectations for anything," Reinholt, who appears overwhelmed at the developments, said. "I only wanted to make sure I sent Ben's paperwork in because I told him I would do that."

The 1999 champions are no longer qualified to be among the 10 grand champions in this year's Body For Life Challenge, which for the first time is an international contest. The 2000 winners will be announced in December. [[In-content Ad]]