Body For Life Builds Following

Every seat was filled as more than 200 people crammed into the former Champs building in downtown Warsaw for Monday's "Body for Life" meeting.

Fueled by Warsaw's Keith Reinholt, an active Body for Life proponent, the monthly meetings continue to grow. Approximately 100 attended the first meeting, 150 the second and 150 the third to hear about Body for Life, a 12-week conditioning program that combines exercise and diet.

Monday's fourth meeting, which attracted people from Elkhart to Fort Wayne, was so full people were forced to stand. They came to see the presentation of the Ben Bibler Annual Scholarship and to hear 33-year-old Tom Archipley, one of 10 1999 Body for Life national grand champions, speak.

Bibler, who died at age 22 last August after he broke his neck in a diving accident, also was one of the 10 Body for Life national grand champions. His $100,000 was awarded posthumously to the Bibler family in the form of an annual scholarship. This year's scholarship, in the amount of $2,500, was given to 18-year-old Warsaw senior Wendy Warren.

After the presentation, the 6-foot, black-haired Archipley, who hails from Okemos, Mich., talked about his transformation. He weighed 189 pounds and had 22-1/2 percent body fat when he began the workout in February 1999. Twelve weeks later in May, he weighed 168 pounds and had eight percent body fat. To do that, Archipley lost 28 pounds of fat and put on 10 pounds of muscle.

Archipley was one of 500,000 to enter the Body for Life contest. In addition to submitting before and after photos, essays were required.

On Dec. 20, 1999, Body for Life founder Bill Phillips showed up on Archipley's Michigan doorstep to give him $100,000 for being named one of the 10 national grand champions.

So grateful was Archipley to Phillips for the change his Body for Life program made in his life he donated $10,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation¨, one of Phillips' favorite charities. He gave another $10,000 to a pastor and $5,000 to his coach.

Phillips has a hardback book out that was a New York Times best-seller in 1999 and still is more often than not easily spotted near the front of bookstores. The book borrows the name of his program, "Body for Life," and on the cover and inside there are countless photos of "before" fat people and lean and defined "after" people. More often than not, they went from their "before" photo to their "after" photo in 12 weeks.

What does Body For Life have you do? Instead of eating three big meals a day, you eat six small meals. The biggest portion of any food should be the size of your fist. You eat a portion of protein, a portion of carbohydrate and portions of fruits or vegetables. You exercise six days a week, alternating aerobics and weight training. The longest workout on any day is 46 minutes. If you don't mind spending the money, you can buy nutrition shakes and bars.

You get one "free day" per week where you don't have to exercise and can eat what you want. And for those who say they're busy and don't have time to eat six times a day, you can replace some of the meals with protein shakes.

"A lot of people have a hard time believing it's real," Archipley said. "A lot of them think the pictures are fake."

And no, Archipley was not fake, as more than 200 people can attest to.

Archipley remembers considering taking the challenge as he was eating a chocolate truffle. His job caused him to fly many places and stay in countless hotels. One of the first things he would do as soon as he entered his hotel room was "see if they had buffalo wings. I had to sample the buffalo wings in every hotel I stayed in."

Tired of who he was and what he was doing to his body, he remembers his mind finally "snapped" as he threw caution to the wind and declared to go through with the 12-week program.

"The hardest part is to make the decision, to say I'm gonna go 12 weeks," he said. "I used to need a coffee and doughnut by 10 every morning. Not anymore. Now I need less sleep, and I'm never tired during the day."

Archipley figures if he can put down his chocolate truffles and buffalo wings, you can set aside your ice cream and pizza.

"Once you do this," he said, "you'll never want to go back. You'll feel too good. You're gonna get a whole new body, a whole new way of life."

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Those who want more information on Body For Life have several avenues to take. The Body For Life magazine, Muscle Media, is available for $4.99 at Reader's World. The $25 hardback book Body For Life is available in bookstores. The web site is www.bodyforlife.com. The phone number is 1-800-297-9776.