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Overweight and burdened with hypertension, bad cholesterol and a stressful job, 45-year-old Cory Kubota received a dire warning from his doctor. “If you keep going down this path, you’re probably going to die young,” the doctor said.

As a CPA, Kubota spent most of his time behind a desk. “I had all the bad habits—ate poorly, didn’t really exercise enough. And I had all the health issues that go along with being overweight,” he says. At 5-foot-10 and more than 260 pounds, Kubota realized he had to make a change if he wanted to be around for his two teenage kids.

Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino

“I wouldn’t even characterize myself as a morning person, but I found that it was worth it to wake up early and get those workouts in.”

Through Aloha Personal Training, which helps clients achieve goals at its Hawai‘i Kai fitness facility, he took up Olympic lifting. “I had never really done that type of lifting before,” he says. “I had never understood the concepts behind high-intensity interval training and incorporating that with weightlifting to essentially turn weightlifting into cardio type workouts. It was kind of life-changing for me.”

Though the workouts were humbling at first, Kubota also found them fun. Soon, he was hooked, showing up for 4 a.m. training sessions a few times a week. “I wouldn’t even characterize myself as a morning person, but I found that it was worth it to wake up early and get those workouts in. I just felt so much better,” he says.

That was in 2019. After eight to ten months of consistent exercise, however, Kubota found himself getting lightheaded. He went back to his doctor and found that his blood pressure was now too low, a result of his hypertension medicine combined with his early morning workouts. “I was basically overmedicating, even though I was taking the same dose.”

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Now 50, Kubota has dropped more than 50 pounds and continues with his training three times a week. On Saturdays, he exercises with his kids, who are working on their own health goals. His son wants to build strength while his daughter is focusing on her lower body to help with dance, gymnastics and cheerleading.

Kubota also makes a point of walking around his neighborhood more often, now that he has the energy for it. In addition to losing weight, lowering his blood pressure and improving his cholesterol, he finds he has better clarity, sleeps better and is motivated to eat healthier. At one point, he was down to 205 pounds; he’s gained some weight back, but now it’s muscle.

“I’m still just as busy. I still have just as much stress at work, but this has really been my therapy,” he says. “I’ll tell people, I go and do Olympic lifting at 4 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, and they just think I’m crazy. But it is important to me because I’ve seen the tangible and intangible benefits of it. It’s part of my life now.”