Halfway through his year-long pursuit of improved health, Paul Roberts has already achieved a fitness trifecta: While his weight has dropped, his strength and energy have increased.

“Paul has lost a total of 24 lbs., 3 percent body fat, and a total of 17.5 inches to date,” says Arianne Missimer, owner of Core Fitness and Roberts’ guide through the 12-month fitness challenge sponsored by Core and Out & About.

“His strength has improved significantly,” she says. “When he started, he was not able to do one regular push-up. Now he’s performing a variety of advanced push-ups on stability and medicine balls. His weights are increasing weekly, although each session brings a dynamic and challenging workout, so there is a constant variety of exercises.”

Missimer says her goal is to prevent her client from plateauing while making his workouts “fun and interesting.”

“This month, we’re focusing on higher weights and lower repetitions to increase muscle hypertrophy and strength. Paul’s now performing intermediate core stabilization and strengthening exercises. For example, he can now kneel on the stability ball and have a medicine-ball toss and perform shoulder or bicep exercises with dumbbells.”

Missimer has also adjusted Roberts’ diet, switching him from 1 percent milk to skim and 2 percent cottage cheese to 1 percent cottage cheese. Missimer also encourages him to consume only three servings of dairy per day.

“These changes will help with lowering his caloric intake 150 to 200 calories per day,” she says. “After you lose a significant amount of weight, your basal metabolic rate changes, so we wanted to decrease his caloric intake to accommodate that change.”

Now down to 250 lbs., the 6’4” Roberts says Missimer’s increasingly demanding regimen has given him more energy.

On the downside, he’s had to invest in some new clothes. “But,” he adds, “now I don’t have any trouble finding them.”