{"id":3527,"date":"2017-12-11T17:31:52","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T17:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/blog\/jude-jean-marie-2017-challenge-winner\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T20:44:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T20:44:06","slug":"jude-jean-marie-2017-challenge-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/blog\/jude-jean-marie-2017-challenge-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"He Pushed Through, Like Mom Would Have Wanted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Getting in shape isn\u2019t always a straight, steady climb. Sometimes you fall back and start over. Sometimes you stop altogether. And sometimes you never want to start again. Jude Jean-Marie knows all about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six months before his 30th birthday, he resolved to get in the best shape of his life. He joined Gold\u2019s Gym, began eating better, and started running. Then, during one sprint in December 2015, he heard a pop: The tendon in his kneecap had ruptured. After his surgery, Jude was confined to bed rest and told his recovery would take months. He spiraled into depression, spending his days watching movies and scarfing down peanut butter M&M\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, while he was climbing stairs, he broke down crying, discouraged by how long his recovery was taking. He wondered: Would he ever be able to work out again? Jude\u2019s mom, Ersulie, comforted him. \u201cYou\u2019re my son,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen you overcome before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ersulie pulled Jude out of his slump. She convinced him to go back to Gold\u2019s Gym\u2014as her workout buddy. They met there a few times a week, walking side by side on the treadmills. They talked. They took group exercises classes together. They pushed each other. After a few months, his health improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"jude<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turning point <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In December 2016, less than a week before Christmas, Jude and Ersulie were talking at home when she stopped mid-sentence. Jude realized she was having a heart attack. He called 911 and performed CPR, but the next day, Ersulie died in her son\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jude spiraled again, floating through days in a fog of grief. Friends brought him food, and he fell back into the habit of eating for comfort. When he couldn\u2019t sleep, he\u2019d eat. When he felt like crying, he\u2019d eat. He gained more than 20 pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day he went to cancel his mother\u2019s gym membership, Jude saw a poster for the Gold\u2019s Gym Challenge<\/strong><\/a> and heard his mom\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jude hesitated but decided to complete the 12-week Challenge in Ersulie\u2019s honor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by his mom, he found his focus. Jude worked out twice a day at Gold\u2019s Gym. All along the way, he felt the support of the Gold\u2019s Gym community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I started coming back, they really embraced me,\u201d he said. \u201cI had tons of encouragement\u2014a lot of advice, a lot of one-on-one conversations on my progress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He started with cardio to build up his stamina\u2014mostly the incline\u2014walking for 30 minutes. Then it became an hour. Then he started running 45 minutes a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a cardio foundation, he added strength workouts, focusing on one area a day: legs, arms, back, chest. A typical leg workout: 15-minute warm-up, leg press, three sets of 25 squats, leg raises, more leg presses, then calf raises. Abs were included every day, mixing up sit-ups, reverse sit-ups, or toes-to-bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019d go to the gym at 5 in the morning for an hour and then again after work, observing Gold\u2019s Gym trainers at times to see what they did. \u201cWhether it was 5 in the morning or 5:30 p.m.,\u201d he said, \u201cI was always finding someone within the Gold\u2019s Gym family to encourage me or push me along or offer suggestions on different types of workouts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making a change  <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There were still low points. Just being at the gym was hard because that\u2019s where he and his mom shared so many memories. As for the Challenge itself, he would ask himself: \u201cThis won\u2019t bring her back, so why bother?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he pushed on, and by maintaining his exercise motivation, he brought himself back. Jude liked the control that exercise gave him over his cravings, grief and stress. He was able to sleep again. He learned portion control and how to cook healthy meals, applying Gold\u2019s Gym nutritional articles<\/strong><\/a>. Going to the gym was hard, but not as hard as what he was already facing: life without his mom. Everything else, he told himself, was easier than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the 12 weeks, he\u2019d lost 57 pounds (from 247 to 190) and cut his body fat percentage in half. At his gym, Jude won the local Gold\u2019s Gym Challenge, then went on to become the 2017 Gold\u2019s Gym Challenge Overall Male Winner. He still misses his mom, but through exercise and diet, he\u2019s found self-discipline, healthy habits, and ways to manage stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gold\u2019s Gym Challenge, he says, \u201cmay have just saved my life.\u201d Those 12 weeks were a training period for how to live every day, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what would his mom have said about all this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy boy!\u201d Jude says. \u201cGood job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<p>Getting in shape isn\u2019t always a straight, steady climb. Sometimes you fall back and start over. Sometimes you stop altogether. And sometimes you never want to start again. Jude Jean-Marie knows all about that. Six months before his 30th birthday, he resolved to get in the best shape of his life. He joined Gold\u2019s Gym, […]<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":6626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[204,146,231,65,88,119,155],"class_list":["post-3527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-success-stories","tag-12-weeks","tag-golds-gym-challenge","tag-gym-contest","tag-healthy-eating","tag-healthy-habits","tag-transformation","tag-weight-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3527"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9692,"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions\/9692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goldsgym.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}