Janis Vergon of Buchanan lost 40 pounds and won a 32-inch LCD television from Aaron’s in the 2012 YMCA fitness challenge. The TV is destined for her husband Randy’s “man cave.”

“I’ve actually lost 70,” Vergon, who works in the office of a trucking company, said Friday evening.

“Thirty pounds last year in the challenge and 40 pounds this year. I stay mainly in the exercise room for cardio and weights. I’ve got more energy, and I’m off medications.”

Vergon has two grown sons and two granddaughters.

“I started out in 2010 with FLIP,” she said of Lakeland’s Fitness and Lifestyle Improvement Program.

“You meet with a registered dietitian and a personal trainer at the beginning, middle and end. Along with FLIP, you get Y membership. That’s how I started coming to the Y. It’s not just nutrition and diet, it’s also exercise. Like everybody, I always tried to diet and exercise at home, but, until I joined the FLIP program and started coming to the Y, it wasn’t as strenuous as it needed to be.”

“We started the program when we came to this building in December 2006,” said Stacie Mayes, personal trainer and fitness instructor, who joined the Y in May 2005. “We do this challenge in the winter time from January until May. We have a fall fitness challenge from October to December.”