MILWAUKEE — "When we got sent home, with the COVID thing. I sat and thought to myself, 'if I sit here and don't go to the office and don't get some physical activity, I'm going to be 320,'" Milwaukee Admirals Vice President of Business Development Mike Wojciechowski says.
That was Mike Wojciechowski, pre-pandemic. Now?
"There's an accomplishment. But there's a lot, I mean I'm a fanatic," Wojciechowski says. "I mean you know, I think people in my neighborhood think I've lost it."
The Milwaukee Admirals Vice President of Business Development realized he had an issue nearly one year ago.
"Every game day, when I'd walk up to my booth," Wojciechowski says. "I mean we had a school day game on the 11th of March. And I walked up to the booth. And I'm telling you, I mean I used to, you know, I can't say that I was ready to have a heart attack, but I tell you what. I mean, I dreaded the walk up to the booth. I mean, I literally would walk out the door, go up the ramp and go 'huff, huff.'"
Now he walks around the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, and neighborhoods, and anywhere he can - logging every step.
"Seven million, 74 thousand steps," Wojciechowski says. "And 35-hundred and 35 miles."
Going from over 280 pounds, and this.
"Well my doctor stared at me one day," Wojciechowski says. "And he goes, you know, 'you're morbidly obese.' And I'm like, 'morbidly obese?'"
To 195, and possibly more.
"All the way down to just plain overweight," Wojciechowski says. "Alright? So I went from the morbidly obese down to overweight. I'm hoping to be you know, in the, you know, in that 175, 185 range. Just taking off 100 pounds? I think that's OK."
And if you think there's some deep, philosophical lesson in all this, there really isn't. It's all pretty simple.
"It's been hard work. But by the same token, anybody can do it," Wojciechowski says.