Jim and Joy Mercer are dedicated to fitness as clearly shown in this picture. Jim was a competitive power-lifter at one time and his wife acknowledges the benefits of maintaining an active lifestyle. The married couple has made their visits to the fitness centre a familiar affair.

By Wally Donaldson
The Oshawa Express

The true story to be told about physical fitness and its many attributes begins with 48-year-old Jim Mercer, an Oshawa resident and architect who at one time threw his concentration and physique behind competitive body building.
That was until a sciatic nerve injury to his back during a training session forced Mercer to retool his way of thinking. Somewhere along the way, he realized the importance of remaining fit and to this day spends up to five days a week inside a gym minus the rigors of competitive stress.
His wife of 27 years, Joy, admittedly slightly plump as a youngster, enjoyed watching her hubby play ball and noting Jim’s added attention to detail inside Body Boomers on Grandview Street, she too realized the importance of working out for the purpose of fitness and maintaining a healthy mind.
And there is my significant other, Danielle Laperriere who during her 20s thought nothing of running 15 kilometres a day after work from Oshawa to Whitby and back strictly “for the enjoyment,” she notes.
Her regimen eased off after bearing two children. Her fondness for fitness came to an abrupt halt 10 years ago when stricken with a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis. A doctor told her that other then going for the odd swim, it was best to forego anything of a physical nature.

However, a glimpse in a mirror one year ago and detection of a lean, mean body gone sour, Laperriere sought out a fitness instructor at the south Oshawa fitness facility to begin an effective program, despite the disease.
Danielle still has rheumatoid arthritis.
She also has a CCM Vandal 24 bicycle with quill pedals and is entering her second summer of bicycling and attacking the many interesting bike trails southern Ontario has to offer.
One focused on fitness despite an injury, another tackling a gym despite a disease and a third realizing the importance of exercise and quality time spent inside the centre with her husband.
Three distinct stories all related to one common denominator - the importance of working out, keeping in shape and bearing the fruits of success from both an appearance and healthy perspective.

From body boomers to budding bloomers.
Oh, and there is a fourth.
Me.
I drank beer and threw back a pail of smokey barbecue wings on a regular basis before wondering out loud at the end of the day why I had to lean so far forward to discover if I was still wearing shoes.
So, okay, maybe not as dramatic as the others. But I would venture to suggest there are a few boys out there and dare I say, fine ladies who at one point have deliberated over whether to enroll at a fitness centre with designs on losing that spare tire around the waist or the least, shedding a few pounds.
While most all fitness centres are co-ed, there really are not that many husband and wife combinations acting as one inside the gym at the same time. Some couples go to movies, some are attracted to restaurants and others hit a bar for beverage and good conversation.
Nothing wrong with that. This is their choice. At the end of the work day, the Mercer pair prefers to be running the treadmill, riding the exercise bike and taking on the many apparatus inside a gym designed to build muscle and tone the body.
“After high school (in Peterborough), I came to Oshawa and found myself behind a drafting board all day and over time, I really packed the weight on,” recalls Jim Mercer. “I was in and out of shape over the years and got up to 200 pounds at one point which isn’t good for someone who is five-foot-six.”
A regular at the gym these past eight years with his wife, Mercer took on the added challenge of powerplifting four years ago after hooking up with Oshawa’s well-known athlete Bill Morrison, an Oshawa Sports Hall of fame inductee.
His best on a competitive level was 386 lbs. on the bench press, 450 lbs. squat and 425 lbs. deadlift. “So-so,” Mercer chimes about his success in competition. “But really, I did do it for the fun and to get in the best shape I possibly could.
“Because of the muscle mass, I was gaining weight, but when I hurt my back, I took a break before coming back to work out and I lost up to 50 pounds. I always wanted to be leaner, slimmer and more muscular looking and that’s why I spend as much time in the gym as I do.
“And it’s also a stress release because my job is very stressful. I don’t drink or smoke so being here in the gym takes away the stress.”
The importance of having his wife at the gym speaks volumes, he says.
“It’s 150 per cent important,” he emphasizes. “It’s important that Joy supports me and comes in here to work out. We do everything together.”
Joy dabbled in fitness before and after marriage, but once realizing the significance of working out on a regular basis, she jumped in with both feet.
“Jim got interested in it and that motivated me,” says Joy, a graduate of G.L. Roberts Collegiate. “I did some aerobics and working out before that, but nothing serious. I did always want to be healthy and with Jim, I realized the importance of exercise.
“This is something we could do together and we’ve really enjoyed that aspect of it. We support each other and it makes it more enjoyable.”
Even the experience of a Mexican Riviera cruise did nothing to keep this couple out of a gym. They were inside the ship’s gymnasium at five in the morning and again at 3 in the afternoon.
Exercise at 5 a.m.? A bit of a stretch isn’t it? “Not at all,” says Jim. “There were windows all around and the prettiest sight while working out was watching the sun come up. It was a beautiful thing to see.”
It was only after taking that giant step forward to the gym and converasation with a personal instructor that Laperriere began feeling good about herself again.
A return to the shopping centre with a smile on her face was most rewarding, she laughs.
“I was shopping, but it was for bigger and bigger clothes,” she’d sooner forget. “It got to a point when I didn’t want to go shopping any more.
”So, I decided that I wasn’t going to let my rheumatoid arthritis get in the way and I joined a gym, worked out and trimmed down to pretty well the same size I was in my 20s.”
She currently is heavy into the spin classes and the rigors of challenging an exercise bike with an instructor barking, “Come on. Come on. Work it. Work it” has paid off on the bike trails.
“I bought a bike just to see if I would like it,” says Laperriere, “and I fell in love with bicycling. The spin classes have really helped me make it possible to ride the trails.”
Therein lies yet another family outing as Danielle, along with daughter Andrea, will this summer travel to Niagara-On-The-Lake for the first time together to participate in a two-day bicycling tour with a guide and a group with similar interests.
It truly is amazing how a few hours in the gym a week can afford people to do the things they never realized was possible.
Jim, Joy and Danielle provide the evidence.