Newcastle resident crowned TOPS King

Prioritizing your health and wellness can bring magic to your life, according to Kenneth Hoffman, of Newcastle. Hoffman was named TOPS Club King for 2024.

Founded in 1948, TOPS is a nonprofit organization focusing on positive, non judgmental weight loss programs and education. TOPS (which stands for “take off pounds sensibly”) has been supporting and encouraging members for over 70 years.

“Where I grew up, I was a member of the ‘clean plates club,’ we were taught never
to leave anything on our plates. It can be a problem if you’re brought up that way,” Hoffman said.

The method worked well with a younger person’s metabolic rate, he said, but as he got older and life stressors became more prominent, circumstances made it more difficult to pay adequate attention to his health.

“Getting older, I started putting on more weight, and I wasn’t paying attention to it because I had other priorities. My daughter, for example,” Hoffman said.

Eventually, after consulting with healthcare providers, Hoffman concluded that his health required his utmost attention.

“The doctor talked me into starting to make some changes. His advice was that if I did not make the changes, they would happen anyway; however, not in the way that I wanted them to. Not voluntarily,” Hoffman said.

“So that was the start of my weight loss journey,” he continued. “I realized I had a lot of abdominal fat, and there is a lot of hard data that shows that the abdomen is a bad place to hold fat; it’s bad for your health. I knew I needed to make some lifestyle changes.”

Hoffman said he committed to those lifestyle changes, which he boiled down to a few key components. It began with vastly reducing the amount of sugar and refined white flour in his diet.

“Now that doesn’t mean I don’t have stuff with sugar in it once in a while; there’s a healthy balance. I don’t want to say I don’t have sugar at all. I just greatly reduced it,” Hoffman said.

According to Hoffman — and medical experts — high-fructose corn syrup is one of the deadliest sugar culprits a person can consume and it should be avoided.

Hoffman experienced positive results in his overall health and well-being after reducing the sugar and refined white flour in his diet and eliminating high-fructose corn syrup.

Hoffman isn’t the only one who discovered the dark secrets behind high-fructose corn syrup. A study published in the Journal of Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior by researchers from the Department of Psychology and the University of Princeton Neuroscience Institute reported on two experiments investigating the link between the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup and obesity. Both studies indicated links between high-fructose corn syrup obesity and metabolic dysfunctions.

Hoffman explained that one of the most fundamental components of lifestyle shifts he made was making sufficient changes in what he did throughout the day to get more physical activity and move his body. Each person’s journey is a little different, he noted, and, therefore, it is essential to shine a light on what works best for your unique lifestyle.

Hoffman’s experience with weight loss shows that you must arrive at a lifestyle that incorporates good physical activity because it’s good for you and you enjoy doing it — and that you can actually harm the body with insufficient physical activity.

“It’s got to work for you, not be someone else’s idea of how it should be done. At TOPS, we design our own exercise plans, for the most part, and we also have a weight goal assigned to us by our doctors. We’ll have our weekly weigh-in at TOPS,” Hoffman said. “If someone announces they gained weight, they don’t get criticized. In fact, the tradition is that everyone says, ‘We’re glad you’re here.’”

TOPS is great for anyone looking to lose weight in a fun, supportive, and encouraging environment, he said.

“They are just such nice people; no one gets criticized, and they do fun things. We play games and have events, it’s exciting. Also, it’s all different age groups. So, anyone is welcome. Yeah, so it got to a point where I just kept looking forward to it,” he said.

According to the TOPS organization, TOPS is at “the forefront of obesity and metabolic research” and has donated more than $9 million toward research at the TOPS Center for Obesity and Metabolic Research.

TOPS’ motto “All are welcome” is a good way to represent TOPS as an organization, Hoffman concludes.