McFit, not McFat

Thinking back to the end of last year, Chris Coleson confessed to being one miserable guy.

At age 42, the New Kent County resident carried close to 300 pounds on his five-foot-eight frame. His cholesterol number pretty much equaled his weight, and his blood pressure had not yet reached a critical level but was dangerously close.

Stressed out over 18- to 20-hour workdays, he appeared to be eating his way into oblivion. Not a rosy picture for someone with an athletic background in surfing, mountain biking, weightlifting, and soccer who now had difficulty tying his own shoes. Even the license plate on his bright red 2007 Porsche Cayman S carried a depressing message — OLD-NFAT.

“The weight came on after I had my kids (now ages 6 and 8),” he said. “I tell people I never lost my pregnancy weight. My wife lost hers, but I kept mine.”

Since Dec. 30, however, Coleson’s weight has dropped from 281 to 216. His trouser size has diminished from a size 50 waist to a size 38. He feels much better, and is anxious to resume a more active lifestyle.

And he owes it all to eating every meal at McDonald’s. That’s right, the Golden Arches. Not exactly a restaurant that comes mind when considering weight loss plans, but Coleson has devised a scheme that apparently works. Soon, his license plate will read MCFIT.

“It’s a great feeling of success to put on clothing I hadn’t worn in years,” he said as he sat down last week inside — where else — McDonald’s to talk about his weight-loss strategy.

Specifically, the interview took place at a table inside the new McDonald’s at the Route 60/249 intersection in Quinton. It’s Coleson’s favorite haunt.

He estimates that 99.9 percent of the food he’s consumed since embarking on his “McFit” diet plan comes from McDonald’s and 80 percent of that originates from the Quinton location.

“I come in here and hide in a corner so people here won’t say, ‘what’s he doing here every day?’” he said. “And I come through the drive-thru in several different cars.”

Coleson considered other fast food chains for his diet plan, but settled on McDonald’s.

“I wanted to prove I could lose weight by eating only at McDonald’s and disprove ‘Super Size Me,’” he said. “I felt McDonald’s got a bad rap. You can eat at any other restaurant and eat horribly and gain just as much weight as at McDonald’s.”

Coleson, however, is not gulping down Big Macs and fries at every meal. His favorites on the menu are grilled chicken wraps along with a variety of salads, the apple dippers, and grilled chicken sandwiches. He admits, however, that he succumbs to the occasional cheeseburger.

And he has help from McDonald’s, no less. The fast food giant offers a web site that promotes healthy eating. An interactive site dubbed “Bag a McMeal” lists the restaurant’s menu items complete with calorie content.

“You put in what you want to eat and calculate the calories,” Coleson said. “For all the criticism McDonald’s gets, they actually have tools that help you lose weight.”

Coleson said his average consumption is 1,200 to 1,400 calories per day.

“What this has taught me is that portion size and calorie intake are the big secrets to losing weight,” he said. “It’s not rocket science. If you take in more calories than you burn, you’re going to gain weight.”

Coleson tracks his progress through a journal that he carries everywhere. Inside are receipts from all the McDonald’s meals he has consumed since embarking on his plan. He also keeps charts and graphs to illustrate his accomplishments.

“This has almost become like a miniature science project,” he said jokingly.

But Coleson is serious when it comes to who has inspired him to improve his physical condition. He credits a disabled veteran named Jeremy FeldBusch whom he met a few years back. FeldBusch is blind, but despite his condition has tandem-biked across the U.S. and is an avid skier.

“Jeremy does all sorts of things,” Coleson said. “I’m fat, and I can’t do half of what he does.”

Also serving as inspiration are other disabled veterans, including several who work for New England Industrial Engineering, the company Coleson and his father, another disabled vet, founded in 2001.

“It’s hard to explain how this whole thing came together,” he said. “It’s part Jeremy and a lot of disabled vets who were healthy at one time.”

And then there’s his wife, Tricia Sumner, who Coleson said supplies the psychological boost behind his effort.

“Her psychology is that I’ll challenge him and he’ll do it. If not, it will be something that’s forgotten,” he said.

Coleson, meanwhile, plans to surprise his wife on the occasion of her 40th birthday, which comes up this Sunday. He will be placing his wedding ring back on his finger, something he has been unable to do for the past seven years.

Ideally, he would prefer to hold her birthday party inside the Quinton McDonald’s and have Ronald McDonald hand him his ring.

“But the McDonald’s people haven’t gotten back to me on that yet,” he said.

At any rate, Coleson doesn’t plan to end his McFit campaign that has carried over to several workers in his Richmond office. He has also convinced the staff at Chickahominy YMCA in Sandston to conduct a “biggest loser” program dubbed “Mission Possible.” The program has attracted 85 participants.

Coleson now has a personal goal of shrinking to the 160-170 pound range, the weight he sported when he and his wife first met.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “I’m having fun and getting healthy is an added benefit of all this.”