Pfoodman News.
'Pfoodman' acquired a taste for fitness
By Amy Bertrand
POST-DISPATCH HEALTH & FITNESS EDITOR
03/26/2007
Republished with the permission of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
©2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Ten years ago, Ralph Pfremmer was a different man. He worked long hours, drank with his buddies, smoked cigarettes and wouldn't dream of getting off the couch to exercise. Today, Pfremmer is 40 pounds lighter and a competitive cyclist. He doesn't smoke, rarely drinks and actually gets to bed at a decent hour. The transformation led not only to a healthier, happier father and husband, but a more successful, confident businessman as well. "I think that people who used to know me would be surprised to see me now," he says. "I'm such a completely different person."
In the beginning
Growing up in Columbia, Mo., Pfremmer remembers the restaurant business's always being a part of his life. "My dad owned a few restaurants, so I almost grew up in restaurants," he says. Pfremmer says he was never a good student. "I don't know if you call it ADD, whatever the disease of the month is, but I had no attention span," he says. So he went to work right after high school in the only business he had known. After several attempts at college and then culinary school, Pfremmer spent time all over the country, working his way up and through the restaurant business, mainly as a chef. "All the time, I was absorbing all the information I could." But that wasn't the only thing he was absorbing. All that food, the late nights, the cigarette smoking and partying were a part of his life.
Making the change
"It's a hard lifestyle," he says. "A culture of bars and food." Eventually that culture began to take its toll on Pfremmer. "It's an indulgent lifestyle," he says. "We drank a lot, we smoked a lot, we ate a lot — we would close down a restaurant, staying out until 2 in the morning. It was a hard way to be," especially with a wife and baby girl at home. So Pfremmer decided to make a change. He left the restaurant business for food-service management at Lindenwood University.
"I know I was well over 230 pounds at that time, but I knew I wanted to improve my lifestyle," he says. But when his contract ran out, he became the food director at Washington University, where he worked 80- to 90-hour weeks. "My health deteriorated even more," he says. He remembers one night in 1997 when his wife and daughter had gone to Disney World without him because he was too busy. He had worked through sickness for several days, but it caught up with him in the form of a 105-degree fever. After heading to a hospital, he was diagnosed with pneumonia. "It took me a good six months to completely get it out of my system," he says.
He soon returned to Lindenwood as part owner of the food-service company that had the contract there. And then he started to play golf, ditching the cart to allow himself to walk. By March 1998, he decided to run in the 5-mile St. Patrick's Day race. He finished the race, walking and running. But by that time, he had a taste for fitness, and he liked it. He increased his mileage more and more, hoping to do a marathon, but a stress fracture in his pelvic bone sidelined that. "I thought, 'This is just great.' I was just starting to become a better person." But his doctors told him that although he couldn't run, he could try biking. He bought a bike, went to Queeny Park and started to bike more and more. He got good enough to tackle the treacherous trails of Castlewood State Park. One day while he was there, he and a friend noticed a race getting ready to take place in March 2000. "We were kind of curious," he says. His friend dared him to enter the race. So he did, under the "first-timers" group. He finished in third place. "It was miserable," Pfremmer says. "I think I walked the bike more than I rode it; it was that hard." But he came back. "It turns out I had some athletic ability and some skill," he says. At age 38, he won second place in the state in the beginner category. And his weight started to fall off. "But I was coughing so much at the end of the race because I was still smoking," he says. "Other people looked at me and said, 'Here's a guy who's going to give up cigarettes or give up cycling,'" Pfremmer recalls. "I decided I enjoyed fitness more than cigarettes." Eventually, he made the decision to stop smoking. "Sooner or later, the endorphins took over the allure of the cigarette," he says. "It just sort of faded away." As time went on, he started to race in more difficult classes; he now races at the expert level. Then he bought a road bike and started on road races. He also does a sport called Cyclo-cross, where you do part of a race on foot carrying your bike and part on the bike. Lifestyle changes couldn't help but follow. "I quit smoking and started eating a lot healthier," he says. He traded French fries for V-8 and started to think of food as fuel for his body. "When you become a competitive athlete, you start thinking, 'What does your system require of you when you go to full exertion?' and you eat accordingly. The right nutrition has a lot to do with your performance." Now, he's an athletic 185 pounds on his 6-foot frame.
His business
Pfremmer eventually bought out the other owners of his food-service business and began to create a brand: Pfoodman. "My dad used to call me that," he says.
He used Pfoodman decals to promote the brand within the cycling circuit and donated food to the events. It was he start of something big: Pfoodman LLC, a food-service company expected to generate more than $10 million in revenue in its current fiscal year. "As soon as I started competing in cycling, everything became clear in business," he says. "I never had the confidence to apply myself as a business owner; suddenly I did. My whole life is based on perseverance." He now speaks to students about nutrition, health and entrepreneurship. "All because of a stupid bike race," he jokes.
Age: 45
Home: Chesterfield
Occupation: President and CEO of Pfoodman LLC.
What he did: Lost 40 pounds, stopped smoking and became a competitive cyclist.
Quotable: "I'm very, very committed to maintaining this characterization of who I say I am. I want to be real."
For breakfast he'll have a protein shake made with soy protein and soy milk and orange juice.
His mid-morning snack is coffee and maybe a bagel and piece of fruit. For lunch, he may have a big salad with a chicken breast or maybe a grilled chicken sandwich. Dinner is meat, a salad, baked potato. For snacks he likes to drink cans of V-8 juice, and if he's training he'll have to take in extra calories while biking in the form of Gu packets and Accelerade, a drink. Even in the winter, Pfremmer rides his bike four to five times a week for two to three hours at a time. He combines mountain biking with 60- to 70-mile road rides.
