For LIUNA member Garry Ero, hard work has never been the problem.
Since joining the union at 20, he’s worked his way from the field to leadership—first as a pipe layer, then in concrete and later as a Field Representative for LIUNA Local 190 in Albany, New York. Today, he serves as the Assistant Director of Training for the Eastern New York Laborers Training Center. But while his career thrived, his health quietly slipped to the bottom of his priority list. That is, until one night forced him to make a change.
“I’ve always been a big guy. I’m six foot five,” Garry says. “When I graduated high school, I was 320 pounds. I stayed around that weight for most of my career because I was active in the field and burning a lot of calories. But once I became a Field Rep and spent more time behind the wheel—or now in my current position behind a desk—the weight steadily crept up.”
By the summer of 2024, Garry weighed roughly 370 pounds. One night, while lying in bed, he felt something that stopped him cold and became the turning point in his health journey.
“I felt like I was having a heart attack,” Garry remembers. “I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I didn’t feel right. I lay there just hoping I would wake up in the morning. When I did, I knew something had to change.”
Garry’s weight had fluctuated before. He’d tried diets or joined coworkers in weight-loss challenges, but nothing stuck. He’d lose 100 pounds one time, 90 another, but the weight always came back. “I had no real plan or direction,” he says. “I’d just eat fruits and vegetables, basically feel like I was starving myself, and then rebound hard.”
This time, he knew it had to be different. “I told myself, if I’m going to try this again, I need a plan I can sustain.”
That plan started with tracking his food intake using the MyFitnessPal app, a tool he’d used in the past but that he now uses with more discipline. “I literally measure everything,” Garry says. “When I compared what I thought was a serving size to the actual measurement of what I’d grown accustomed to eating, I realized I’d been eating four times the amount I should have been. It was a real eye-opener.”
He committed to portion control, calorie tracking and movement every single day. He set a realistic calorie goal based on his weight and tracked his progress weekly. “My Apple Watch syncs with MyFitnessPal, which makes it easy to track my steps and calories burned throughout the day,” he explains. “That combination is a game-changer. It takes all the guesswork out.”
At first, Garry started small with lightweight strength training and short walks between sets. “Nothing heavy—just 50 pounds or less, lots of reps, lots of sets,” he says. “Between sets, I take a lap down the basketball court and back. Those laps alone during my workouts give me 5,000 steps.”
As he built consistency, he increased his activity. “Now I hit 20,000 steps a day and aim to burn about 1,600 calories through movement,” he says. “It sounds like a lot, but once you build the habit, it’s just part of your day.”
When an unexpected shoulder injury forced him to pause weightlifting, Garry didn’t let it derail his progress. “I hurt my shoulder on a water-park ride, so I couldn’t lift for a while,” he says. “But I figured, I don’t need my arm to run. So I started running instead, sometimes up to 11 miles a day, just to stay on track until I healed.”
Finding workarounds when obstacles appeared became a theme of his journey. “It’s not about perfection,” Garry says. “It’s about staying consistent and adapting when life happens.”
The result? In just seven months, Garry lost 153 pounds and has kept that weight off for more than a year.
To stay consistent, Garry built a meal prep routine that makes healthy eating automatic. “I meal-prep everything for the week on one day on the weekends,” he says. “All my food is portioned into containers, ready to grab before I head out for the day.”
He focuses on whole, minimally processed foods: ground turkey, sweet potatoes, avocado and homemade snacks like granola bars made from rolled oats, raw honey and nuts. “I make everything from scratch that I can,” he says. “I cut out seed oils and processed ingredients. Even my peanut butter is just peanuts and salt.”
His family’s meals don’t always match his schedule—especially since he’s an early riser—but he’s learned to make peace with that. “I eat at different times, but we still sit down together when we can,” he says. “This is something I needed to do for me, and my family understands that.”
That mindset shift—doing it for himself—is what Garry says made the difference this time. “Before, I was losing weight because everyone else was trying to do it. It was a fad or a challenge, but not something I was fully, 100 percent in on,” he says. “This time, I told myself, I’m not doing this for anyone but me. I want to be around for my kids. I don’t want to be 400 pounds at age 50.”
Since losing the weight, Garry has been able to come off blood pressure and cholesterol medications and no longer struggles with the leg swelling that once required a stent procedure. “My confidence is back. I feel so much better,” he says. “I’m not claiming to be fully ready to go shirtless at the pool, but I’m closer than I’ve ever been.”
Now he’s focused on maintenance and chasing what he calls an “almost impossible goal.”
“I want six-pack abs,” he says, grinning. “But honestly, I’m looking forward to keeping up with my new lifestyle. I proved to myself that I can do it—and that’s what keeps me going.”
[Natalie Kulick]
