A diabetic for the past 15 years, Al Cammarono, 45, has struggled to lose weight and maintain a healthy diet. Two years ago Cammarono began training at Iannuzzo’s Karate School, and today he is proud to unveil a new body, 60 pounds lighter. Along with the physical benefits he has gained through training, Cammarono has also received nutrition counseling from the instructors at the karate school.

Iannuzzo’s Karate School is proud to unveil a recent student success story of a man struggling with diabetes who successfully lost 60 pounds through martial arts training.

Al Cammarono, 45, has been a student at Iannuzzo’s Karate School in Central New York for the past two years. Before training at Iannuzzo’s, Cammarono took between eight to ten different pills a day because of his diabetic condition. As a truck driver, Cammarono was on a busy schedule that also required a lot of physical work and heavy lifting. He struggled to lose weight and eat healthy foods because of the kind of food that was available to him while traveling. He made attempts to lose weight through different exercise techniques and diet changes and was unsuccessful until he started training at Iannuzzo’s.

Although he didn’t immediately see results, Cammarono said that after he started training he began to feel better. After several months of training, Cammarono began to see results and was pleased with his progress. “I never realized how out of shape I was until I started training,” he said. “I look back at pictures from then and there’s no comparison, I lost sixty pounds.”

Cammarono set a goal to lose weight when he began training and that was his main focus. “In the beginning I didn’t care about earning the belts but the more you work and the more effort you put in the more results you see and the better you feel,” he said. “It then became a goal and I figured I might as well see it through, it was a personal goal to succeed and now I feel like I can do anything.”

Along with the physical training at Iannuzzo’s, Cammarono also receives nutritional counseling from Rick and Julia Iannuzzo. Cammarono believes there is a balance between diet and exercise that he needed in order to stay healthy.

“The exercise is awesome, but it’s definitely a marriage between the diet and the exercise,”Cammarono said. Cammarono says he’s been able to create a balance between diet and exercise while traveling constantly because of the Iannuzzo’s help. While he’s on the road, Cammarono often calls Rick and Julia for nutritional advice and for answers to some questions he may have while out of town.

Two years after he began training, Cammarono is now down to taking one pill a day and is considered pre-diabetic. His training at Iannuzzo’s has created a total lifestyle change for himself. Not only has he lost a significant amount of weight, Cammarono has also increased his flexibility and maintained his balance, two things that typically begin to decrease over time.

Cammarono hopes that his story can motivate others to make the same lifestyle change that he has made. “If my positive words will help somebody else then I think that’s just awesome,” he said. “If I can help one person better his or her life than it’s well worth it.”

Iannuzzo’s Karate School has also developed an online program, http://www.internationalkarateschool.com, for those beyond the Central New York span who want to train. Internationalkarateschool.com is designed for men, women and children of all ages. The program enables Martial Arts enthusiasts to earn black belts in the comfort of their own home and on their own time. To learn more about the online karate programs available please visit internationalkarateschool.com