What made Allan Finnegan a successful student also made him overweight by more than 100 pounds.

The damage was more than just toying with diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

"In high school, I got good grades, but I always waited until the last minute to do my homework," he said. "So I'd skip lunch and do my homework at the library.

"I'd get home and I'd eat to make up for morning and lunch. Then, when my family ate, I wasn't hungry. Then I'd eat late at night."

His weight peaked at about 270 pounds in his senior year of high school, more than his 6-foot frame should have to handle.

When he moved to Columbia, Mo., to attend the University of Missouri, he found he was unable to fully connect to collegiate social life.

"I started going to parties in college, but I couldn't be myself because I was thinking about how others were thinking of me, the fat kid," he said.

His friends never made an issue of it, he said. Still, "Eventually, I stopped going out with them."

The self-imposed solitary confinement helped his academics, but his social life suffered.

"I had to do something," he said. "That's what got me motivated."

In high school, his parents had him signed up for a weight loss program through Charles D'Angelo, who describes himself as a weight loss coach. He designs eating programs and exercise schedules for his clients. Many of his success stories involve weight losses of 100 pounds or more — including his own story, having lost more than 100 pounds years ago.

"But it's for motivated people," D'Angelo said. "It's tough, but if you stick to it, you'll lose weight and (get healthier)."

While in college, Finnegan picked up the program he'd tried and abandoned in high school.

"In my freshman year, I started eating healthier," he said. "I wasn't exercising every day, but I'd get out and walk." He emptied his room of junk food temptations.

"But when I got really serious, I went back to Charles and he got me set up on what I needed to do."

Finnegan's program was to eat six small, high-protein meals a day and spend 30 minutes on the treadmill six days a week.

For example, breakfast was a protein shake at about 6 a.m.; around 9 a.m., a handful of cashew nuts; lunch would be a turkey sandwich and chips; mid-afternoon was yogurt; dinner was six to eight ounces of chicken, fish or steak, with a cup of dark green vegetables; 9 p.m. half an apple with a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter.

"My friends thought I was crazy, eating the same thing every day," he said.

Before long, he'd increased his treadmill to an hour a day, with one day off a week. The pounds began to melt.

"I couldn't see it myself. I could tell in my clothes," he said. "I'd come home for summer and my friends said I looked so much better."

The encroaching health problems faded away, including a blood pressure that had been creeping upward.

Still, challenges face him, he said. "I come in and my roommates are there at 10 at night playing video games and eating pizza," he said. "That's tough. In college, everyone is drinking and eating junk food all the time.

"When that pops up, I think of myself back in the time. I think it's not worth going back to the way I was."

Today, after more than a year of work, Finnegan weighs about 160 pounds. Living on a college student's budget, his clothes are baggy and ill-fitting, he said, but that's a small price to pay.

This summer, he's returning to D'Angelo to start an exercise program to bulk up. "I'm hoping to be about 200 pounds by the end of summer," he said. This time, it will be muscle and not fat, he said.

What did he learn?

"It has to be something you want very bad," he said. "I learned that the things you want the most you have to work the hardest to get."

Do you know a 'How I Did It'?

Send submissions to: Jackie Hutcherson, STL Health editor St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 900 North Tucker Boulevard St. Louis, Mo. 63101-1099

E-mail • jhutcherson@post-dispatch.com