Jean Dragon, left, with Zach, and Rachelle Dragon, with Cassie, head for their home in Muscatine after taking the dogs for a walk. Jean Dragon has lost 60 pounds in the past 16 months. He started losing weight by walking the dogs with his wife. Chris Steinbach/Muscatine Journal

MUSCATINE, Iowa — First thing this morning, Jean Dragon led an indoor-cycling class for 45 minutes at the Muscatine Community Y.

This being Jan. 3, some of the up to 11 riders may have been new to the class as they begin exercise programs in an attempt to follow through on New Year’s resolutions to lose weight. Those rookie riders — and anyone else who made similar resolutions for which they haven’t yet thrown in the towel — can look to Dragon, whose first name is the French spelling of John, for inspiration.

Dragon, 47, weighed about 250 pounds in the fall of 2007, when he and his wife, Rachelle, 46, took their youngest son, Alex, to the University of Iowa for his freshman year.

“That was a key turning point,” said Jean Dragon, who has lost at least 60 pounds in the 16 months since then. “We took control of the kind of food we were buying.”

And that enabled the Dragons to stop buying the junk food that led to his weight gain, but kept their sons happy when they were living at home.

Dragon, a lawyer who works two days a week at HNI Corp. and three days a week as an independent contractor at Bridgestone Bandag Tire Solutions, also pushed himself away from his desk and started becoming more active.

The neighbors were used to the sight of Rachelle Dragon’s 90-minute power walks with the family’s dogs, Cassie, a yellow Labrador, and Zach, a collie and German shepherd mix.

“We started walking the dogs (together) then,” she said.

By walking the dogs with his wife, Jean Dragon followed three tips that, according to Weight Watchers, are a key part of becoming more active. 

-  He started slowly at first and didn’t try an hour-long high-intensity workout.

- He found someone to be his exercise partner.

 - He picked an exercise he liked and could commit to doing long enough for it to become a habit.

The tips are simple weapons in a war on weight that growing numbers of Americans are losing. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 26.9 percent of Iowans were classified as obese in 2007, and the rate has nearly doubled since 1993.

The CDC classifies anyone who has a body-mass index reading of at least 30 as obese. BMI is calculated using height and weight. When he weighed 250 pounds, Dragon, for example, had a BMI of about 33. He has since lowered his number to about 25, and he hopes to drop it some more by losing another 15 to 20 pounds.

He gives a lot of credit to the Y, which his family joined after moving to Muscatine from the Chicago area in 2003. In addition to 19-year-old Alex, the Dragons’ family includes their oldest son, James, 22. Both are on the swim team at the University of Iowa.

“We got it for the boys, who swam,” Jean Dragon said of the Y membership. “I rarely used it for myself.”

Instead of working out, he “was focused almost completely on work,” Dragon said. “There was an imbalance there.”

What a difference 16 months has made in his mindset. As he became more fit, Dragon started attending the indoor cycling classes at the Y, which he now leads twice a week. He usually attends at least one other cycling class a week. He also runs three times a week and lifts weights twice a week.

“For me, working out in the morning is best,” he said. “The Y is less crowded then.”

He usually exercises before going to work, but can often be seen at the Y in the evenings and on weekends, too.

And he has also changed the way he eats, packing a lunch to take with him to work on most days, cutting most of the red meat from his diet and eating steady rations of fruit and vegetables, brown rice, fish and chicken.

The changes have helped him trim 10 inches from his formerly 44-inch waist. Being trimmer made buying new clothes a happy experience, he said, and has helped boost his self-confidence and self-image.

“I (am) more energetic (now) at work,” he said, because of the time he spends exercising. “I (used to think) I didn’t have enough time … That’s an excuse that people make.”

Reporter contact information:

Chris Steinbach, 563-262-0535.

chris.steinbach@muscatinejournal.com