PAGE A14, KEIZERTIMES, MARCH 25, 2022
Local man drops 170 lbs in one year
BY CHARLES GLENN
Of the Keizertimes
Keizer resident Ethan Blaser weighed
more than 300 lbs. and wore size 42
pants when he entered his freshman year
of high school. By the time he was 30,
he weighed 400 lbs – but in the space
of a year, with the help of the trainers at
Prosper Athletic Club, he dropped more
than 170 lbs.
Blaser, now only 229 lbs, is a tool and
dye maker and computer numerical con-
trol (CNC) operator. He was preparing to
get married a year ago when the COVID
pandemic arrived and he found himself
out of work and with a lot of time on his
hands.
“Once I realized my wedding was in
six months, it was kind of a wake-up call,”
he said. “I decided I needed to do some-
thing now.”
His first steps were all diet-related.
He educated himself about nutrition and
changed his diet, with an initial goal of
losing 70 lbs. in the six months until his
wedding.
“I looked up how to have a good
relationship with food,” he said. “It was
working but I knew I needed to do more,
so I contacted Prosper – they were just
re-opening and starting to let limited
people in the door. I came in and signed
up for their physical training (PT) pro-
gram and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
According to Prosper Athletic
Club director, Sal Marino, the staff at
Prosper were waiting for just this kind of
opportunity.
“We picked him out, actually,” said
Marino. “I don’t think he knew what he
was getting into. At the time, I was just a
trainer and my boss assigned him to me.”
Marino, who now runs the athletic
club, said Blaser is a case-study in disci-
pline and hard work.
“You don’t see this happen often,” said
Marino. “We often get clients who lose
60-70 lbs. in a year, but this is triple that.”
The early stages involved assessing
Blaser’s overall health and ability to han-
dle a workout regimen.
“I was sedentary for most of my life,”
“For a long time I was doing two-a-
days,” he said.
He said the one indelible lesson he’s
learned in the past year is that “you can’t
out-train a bad diet.”
“Just from the diet-change alone, in
the first two weeks, I dropped about 20
Ethan Blaser flexing after a workout at Prosper Athletic Club
he said. “Once I figured out what I could
do, mobility-wise, they created a program
for me.”
Blaser didn’t settle for the work-out
program Prosper designed, however. He
added morning cardiovascular workouts,
as well.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
pounds. I cut out fast-food and soda,
started eating a lot of lean proteins and
such.”
Blaser said the key for him, diet-wise,
was finding foods he could eat a lot of, for
not a lot of calories.
“When you’re really big, you have a
big appetite,” he said. “In the beginning
you still need to eat a lot of food, it just
has to be the right kind.”
The most challenging part of the
whole experience, according to Blaser,
was the obvious mental challenge inher-
ent in losing 170 lbs. and the vast changes
that was going to have on his lifestyle.
“The mental part is the hardest – wor-
rying about what people were saying,” he
said.
Blaser thinks he overcame that obsta-
cle largely because of the atmosphere at
Prosper.
“This isn’t, like, a commercial gym,”
he said. “I can look around and I know
pretty much everyone in here, and there
is a mutual respect that happens – the
atmosphere is different here. It’s much
more like a bunch of friends working out
together, and these guys will do anything
in their power to help you.”
Sometimes that even means telling a
client they need to “take it down a notch.”
The staff has been challenging Blaser
to reach his goals, but they also want
to ensure he stays healthy and doesn’t
over-train.
“They told me I need to take a step
back and let my body recover,” said
Blaser, who just finished a 75-day hard
challenge, which requires two 45-minute
workouts each day – one of which has to
be outside. “So I was out on runs at 3 a.m.
carrying weights, then I’d be in here in
here at night doing my second workout.”
Marino said Prosper is now fully-open
with regular hours, and he wanted to let
Keizer know they are ready to help.
“I want Keizer to know we accept
everybody,” said Marino. “ We have an
89 year-old lady who comes in here every
day and does her thing. It doesn’t matter
what shape you’re in – we’re here to help
you achieve your goals."
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