TONY PISKA went from 235 pounds to 210

• Current weight: 210 pounds
• Pounds lost: 25
• Height: 5 feet 8 inches
• Personal life: Piska works at IBM in business partner support as a database administrator. He lives in Atlanta and is single.

“Maneuverability is always a problem. It became more laborious, walking around the workplace, walking around the apartment — [I had] knee and joint pain.” Piska had been thinking about trying to get healthier, so when he found Fresh ‘n Fit Cuisine (www

.freshnfitcuisine.com), he decided to try it. “My goal was never to lose weight but to get healthier,” he says.

• Diet plan: Five days a week, three meals a day, Piska ate prepackaged, freshly prepared meals at around 2,000 calories per day. (Meals can be picked up from 25 Atlanta locations or delivered.) On a typical day, he had a muffin and a piece of fruit for breakfast; a pasta salad, sandwich or wrap and fruit for lunch; and a savory dinner such as lasagna or pizza. “It was difficult at first, radically changing one’s diet,” Piska says. “It’s just a matter of setting your mind to do something.”

• Exercise routine: “As you can imagine, it may be a little more difficult for someone who is physically impaired to follow an exercise program,” Piska says. “I focused on the eating because I have more control over that.”

Biggest Challenge:  I think the biggest one for me [was] the restrictive nature of the program,” he says. “If I wanted a sandwich or a pizza, I could do that if I wanted to, but not within the context of the program.” So while spontaneous meal choices were out, it was ultimately rewarding to stick to his program, even though he had those moments of wanting something other than what was on the menu.

• Munchie antidote: “I would usually have a little bag of pretzels. That seemed to do it pretty well.”

• Secret to success: “Not really a secret, just a determination to do it,” he says. “I was going to stick with it.”

• How life has changed: “I’ve lost one size of pants. It also gets back to the ease with which to move around life,” he says. “To have more energy and just generally to feel better. I didn’t really expect that either — I expected a minor impact.”

He’s also finding he has less physical fatigue as well as reduced stiffness and soreness in his muscles and joints. “After you’ve been on the program as long as I have, you can get around easier when you don’t have as much weight bearing down on your joints.”

— Michelle C. Brooks,for the Journal-Constitution