This story is part of our ongoing “First Steps” series, where we share extraordinary stories of men who transformed their bodies, minds, and lives with a focus on the first steps it took them to get there (because, after all, nothing can change without a first step!). Read all of the stories here.
Below, Mitch Kahn, 71, discusses the first step to starting his weight-loss journey, which propelled him into a full-blown fitness career.
I WORKED IN the business world for most of my career, providing risk management services to financial institutions. When I retired in 2008, I had let myself go in terms of health and fitness. I never made time for exercise, and I ate pretty poorly. I was 59 years old at the time, and at my heaviest I weighed 265 pounds. I also had high cholesterol. I was pre-diabetic. I had high blood pressure. It finally hit me when I retired how unhealthy I was, and I needed to do something about it.
I wasn’t sure where to start. The first step in my fitness journey was to ask a lot of questions about how to train and what to eat. That led me to do a ton of research. I started picking up magazines like Men’s Health. From there, I started to identify various fitness experts to follow more closely. I’m a bit exact in that way—when I get into something, I want to learn as much about it as I can. I started buying books once I discovered who the big players in the fitness industry were, going all the way back to Jack LaLanne [a fitness personality of the early 2000s].
Through all of my research, I learned how to eat and exercise. I eventually became a plant-based eater, but it originally started with simply focusing on eating less processed and more whole foods. I started exercising regularly, mixing strength training and cardio with the stuff I learned in books and magazines. I would mimic the workout routines, which were mostly bodybuilder routines. As I learned more, I switched to upper/lower body splits, lifting four times per week with a day of recovery in between. I did mainly compound moves using both barbells and dumbbells, like flat and incline bench chest presses, shoulder presses, back and hack squats, lunges, a variety of deadlifts, rows, pull ups. I also walked at least three miles per day and would run 8 x 100 yard wind sprints twice a week.
“I really want to be a ROLE MODEL and show people you can change your H