Breaking News
Life

Bay Athletic Club’s Thinner Winner a huge success

By Darby Hinkley 4 min read

ALPENA -- It's not every day you can become a winner by losing.

But that's what all the participants in this year's Thinner Winner competition did. Most notably, the team that lost the most weight, "Here for a Six Pack," went home healthier and richer on Friday night, winning $1,000 for topping the competition in the annual event by Bay Athletic Club.

BAC celebrated the culmination of its 2022 Thinner Winner program on Friday at Bay Urban in downtown Alpena. Winning team members are Lori Walling, John Walling, Eric Kasubowski, and Katie Kasubowski. They lost 65.2 pounds as a team.

Overall, with 17 teams, participants lost 724 pounds and 598.5 inches in the six-week challenge. This is the first year since the pandemic that Thinner Winner has been held, and BAC owner Trina Gray was blown away by the results.

"We started it 15 years ago," Gray recalled. "And then, we were off a few years during the pandemic … the last one we did was 2019 … These are the best results we've ever had, in 15 years."

She said fewer teams competed this year, but those teams were serious about losing weight and getting healthier. In years prior to COVID, upwards of 30 teams have competed, but Gray was happy with this year's motivated group.

"We started this competition 15 years ago as a way to help people get started again," Gray explained. "Oftentimes life, seasons of life, changes in life, take people off track. And we looked at Thinner Winner as a way for people to recommit and to start fresh."

Teams had access to BAC classes, including special Thinner Winner classes, during the six weeks. The goal is to encourage each other while having fun working out and making healthier choices.

"It's fun because it's done in teams," Gray said. "So people are getting healthy, working out with friends, family, and coworkers. So, they get better results, because the people they surround themselves with are doing the same things they're doing."

Another part of the program is a habit tracking sheet they each filled out to log their daily food choices, water intake, workouts, and so on.

"This is what creates results," Gray said. "Simple accountability and habit tracking."

Tiffany Orban won a pair of Nike shoes of her choice by filling out her tracker regularly and winning the drawing. She was also on the second-place team, "Tootsie Rollers."

Gray is so proud of all the participants.

"They were committed," she said. "We had our greatest amount of weight lost, inches lost, and percentage of weight lost, of any Thinner Winner we've ever done."

Gray said the excellent results show that people are ready to get back out there and put the work in to be healthy.

"I think people were ready, after two years of being off," Gray said. "I've never seen a group so ready for change. I looked at the results and did a double-take … It is exciting."

Out of nearly 80 people in the competition, 26 of them lost more than 10 pounds, and 10 people lost more than 20 pounds in just six weeks, Gray said.

"These are people that did it, with water, nutrition, and exercise," she noted. "So, they did it in a safe, healthy way … It seemed to me, more than ever, that they were people really wanting better health, and it started with weight loss."

Danielle Kollen was on the team, "Here We Go Again," as she has participated several times before.

"Having a very large group of people keep you accountable for weight loss" is why she joined up again.

And for Kollen, the results speak for themselves. She lost 13 pounds, and her team placed fourth.

"I feel great," Kollen said at Friday's celebration. "I feel like I'm back on track."

Matt Cooke was also on Kollen's team.

"My goal was more to get my blood sugar under control," Cooke said. He also said getting back into regular workouts was part of his plan.

Cooke was successful, getting his blood sugar to the right levels, as well as losing several pounds.

"My blood sugar is where it's supposed to be now," he said.

He said it's easy to make excuses, but "when you've got a team, they push you a little bit more."

The top 10 finishers in the competition were: Christina Perge (19.8 pounds lost); Bob Kollen (20 pounds lost); Chris Spencer (20.8 pounds lost); Rachel Canavan (21.4 pounds lost); Mike Stepanski (21.6 pounds lost); Kelly Witter (23.4 pounds lost); Eric Kasubowski (23.4 pounds lost); Cody Wenzel (23.6 pounds lost); Steve Bruski (24.4 pounds lost); and the overall individual winner, Ryan Wieczorkowski (35 pounds).

For more pictures and results, visit Bay Athletic Club on Facebook.

Starting at /week.