By Alex Costello
All Spar had to do to get 26.2 miles to the finish line was cut himself nearly in half. He dropped 150 pounds before hitting the pavement in Nov. When Spar, who grew up in Long Beach and recently moved to Oceanside, first decided to start losing weight, he didn't even know how heavy he was. He was afraid to climb on a scale because of the high number it would display.
"I was just engaged in February of that year [2004], so obviously I wanted to fit into my wedding dress," he joked. "You're always in denial when you're overweight. You just don't believe how big you actually are. Some pictures you see, you convince yourself you're actually looking good."
There was a picture of Spar and his wife in England on his father Frank's desk. And it was not one of those good pictures Spar mentioned.
"It was awful. I said to my dad, 'Can you just get rid of this picture?'" Spar said. "And he said, 'What's wrong with it? This is what you look like.'"
"Of course you want your son to lose weight when he's that size," Frank Spar said. "It's important. But you can't force him to do anything. He's got to want to do it himself."
That photo stuck in Spar's mind as he committed himself to losing weight. But before he started hitting the gym, he tried something a little unorthodox: he hit the Playstation.
"I tried that 'Dance Dance Revolution' game on the Playstation," he said. "I heard something on TV about these kids who lost weight playing it, and I thought, 'Ooh, let me try that.'"
The problem, Spar soon discovered, was that in order to get to the faster moving, more cardio-spiking dance sequences, it took hours to advance through the game. He decided joining a gym would be simpler.
"I kind of couldn't believe it," said Spar's wife, Angela. "For years, people told him to lose weight, and he never listened. And one day he just started to lose weight."
Spar started out slowly, walking on the treadmill for a few minutes two or three times a week. He began to introduce gradual changes to his diet.
"Over time, my clothes started getting bigger and I was able to fit into clothes that I had bought and never been able to wear," he said, "and that was just when I started to turn it up a notch."
Spar said his narrowing waistline provided incentive to make even more dietary changes, in addition to upping his workout regiment.
"And then it just spiraled, upwards or downwards, I don't know how you want to call it," he said with a laugh. "It spiraled in the positive way, to me doing what I'm doing now."
At 32 years old, Spar now weighs a healthy 185 pounds. But it took him two years to get there, and he's kept himself there for an additional two.
Spar started running when he got himself down to about 220 pounds, mainly because he was getting tired of his other exercises. "I just started on the treadmill just running a couple of minutes, literally, just to see if I could do it," he said. "And I could do it." From there, Spar accelerated his running. He moved from the treadmill to the boardwalk outside of his old home in Long Beach, which was a four-mile run end to end.
Then, to spice things up a bit, he signed up for his first 5K. "My first 5K was in April of 06," Spar recalled. "I just remember that because I know my wife was pregnant with my daughter."
Spar knew he would finish the race, since a 5K is shorter than the 4 miles he would run on the boardwalk (five kilometers is a little more than three miles). Then he began focusing on improving his time by doing more and more 5Ks. Once Spar felt he couldn't improve his time much more, he started signing up for longer races.
"At this point, when you start running like this, the weight really started to drop off, and I ended up where I am now, probably about two years ago," he said. "And my weight hasn't changed since."
Spar used signing up for longer races as a way to keep himself motivated and stay in shape. Eventually, he signed himself up for half marathons. And after he improved his time on a few of those, there was only one thing left for him to do.
"I figured the natural progression was to do a full marathon," he said. "That's kind of how it happened."
"Originally, who thought he could walk around the block, let alone run a marathon?" Spar's wife said. "I'm extremely proud."
Now that Spar has finished the marathon, he feels great (except for the pain in his legs, but that's fading). His goal now is to finish the New York City Marathon again, but in less time and without being quite as exhausted. His family is extremely proud of him, even though they thought he was crazy to even want to run a marathon in the first place.
"When he got done with the marathon, the first thing he said was, 'I'm out of my mind. I don't know why I did this. I'm never doing it again,'" said Spar's father. "But since then, he changed his mind."
"I still think he's crazy for doing it, but to each his own," he added.
And now that Spar's in good shape, he hopes to serve as a positive role-model for his daughter, Ella. "One of my biggest worries is that she'll end up like I was," he said. "She's got the same sweet tooth I have." But Spar and his wife are doing their best to teach their daughter about eating smart and the importance of staying fit.
"Looking back at those pictures, he's half the man he was," Angela said. "But he's still the same inside. And I know he'll never go back."
Comments about this story? ACostello@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 207.
