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SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah father of the bride said he lost 60 pounds for his daughter's wedding.
Glenn Buma said his daughter approached him first to talk to him about his weight.
"She came to me one day and she said, ‘Dad, you know you have got to do a little shedding before the wedding' is how she termed it," Buma said. "And so I told her I'd take her up on that."
As security director at Intermountain Medical Center, Glenn Buma had the tools at his fingertips with Intermountain's website intermountainlivewell.org.
"I was looking at the LiveWell website and I was looking at some of the little tutorials they have for us, and I thought, 'I can do this!' " Buma said.
Fast forward to his daughter's wedding five months later, and he had lost a significant weight from all the exercises and the program.
"I lost a total of 60 pounds," Buma said. "I went down from a size 38 to a 32 in my pants, my neck size dropped by two sizes as well. So yeah, it's just really been good!" Buma said.
Buma's coworker Sherry Peterson said she noticed a difference.
"He's skinny now, he's lost a lot of weight," Peterson said. "All the time, people think he's sick or something. ‘Is Glenn sick?' No, he's just losing weight."
Buma said he's not following a specific diet, but rather making better choices and changing his lifestyle.
"I'm not doing any diet programs. I'm not doing any packages, that kind of a thing. I've just based it on real food items and things that I would just buy at the grocery store," Buma said.
Buma said he does have a secret weapon: his Pedometer. It was a gift given to all Intermountain employees to encourage healthy living.
"I looked at it and said, ‘I want to do things that I know I'm going to do, that I can stick with,' so I looked at it and said, ‘I know I can always walk,' " Buma said. "I'll run this up to 10-thousand steps in a day, that's what I'll try to do."
But Buma said there is a downside to losing 60 pounds.
"I ended up buying two new suits for the wedding. I originally had a suit made, but that was before," he said. "It got to the point it was so bad, I just couldn't wear it anymore. It was like pulling on a rope and holding on. I had to go out and get another suit made so it would fit me for the wedding."
While losing weight was a challenge from his daughter, Glenn said he did it for himself which sums up his advice for everyone.
"Once that motivation is there, individually, and not for someone else, and not for some other perceived purpose, they'll have success," Buma said. "I made the decision to do something that was in my best interest, and hopefully by doing that, it reflects back for my daughters and all my children."
