Winner of 'Biggest Loser' reality show teaches healthy eating in West Hempstead

    For the past month, special education students at the Nassau BOCES Eagle Avenue Middle School in West Hempstead have participated in Strive for Five, a school-initiated program focused on getting kids to eat healthy, exercise often and encourage one another to push forward.
    To show students that eating right and exercising can improve their lives, the school brought in Bill Germanakos, winner of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” on March 26 to speak to 120 students about maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
    Germanakos, a Lynbrook resident, lost 164 pounds while on the reality weight-loss show and won the $250,000 top prize. He underwent a grueling five-month diet and exercise regimen while on the program, but said the worst thing happened to him before he appeared on the show.
    Germanakos said that his family took a trip to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, and he and his daughter, Adrian, were waiting on line to ride Rolling Thunder. When they got to the front, Germanakos, who weighed more than 330 pounds, was so big that he couldn’t fit on the roller coaster. He began getting heckled by onlookers.
    “I couldn’t breathe,” he recalled, explaining that the safety bar could not fit over his stomach. “I was done. I was so beat up in my mind. I was motionless. Adrian told me not to listen to them and that she still loved me. I just knew that I had to get healthy.”

    Then a close friend of Germanakos’s died, and, faced with his own mortality — doctors told him he had become morbidly obese — he knew he had to change the way he lived his life. Doctors told him he probably wouldn’t make it to age 60. “That was motivation enough,” he said.
    Germanakos underscored that his transformation came through dedication and motivation. He told students that they need to create a plan and set goals for themselves. His goal was to live long enough to walk his daughters down the aisle when they get married. “Challenge yourself,” he told students. “What can you do every day to make yourself proud?”
     Children should have five servings of fruit and vegetables per day, he said, and exercise for five minutes five times a day.
    Principal Robert Lombardi, a childhood friend of Germanakos’s, said he thought the speech was powerful and that students were inspired by it. “His message enhanced their motivation,” Lombardi said. “They were thrilled about it.”
    Physical education teacher Brian Redash said the kids have accepted the idea of staying active, eating right and exercising. “It’s definitely caught on,” Redash said. “It’s the most [kids] I’ve ever seen [exercising].”
    According to Angela Marshall, the school’s interactive production manager, Strive for Five kicked off on March 1 with a week of activities exploring the benefits of eating five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Week two centered on the importance of exercise, and staff and students were encouraged to drop everything and work out for 25 minutes. During week three, students were encouraged to compliment their peers, and in the final week, the school population began putting all of the lessons into action.

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