A year after his daughter was born, Jeremy Agno had hit the 300-pound mark and was starting to worry about his health.

He was also getting irritated at other people worrying about his health.

"A lot of people were getting on my back about my weight," he said. "It just got irritating. I just wanted to say, 'Shut up, already!' "

Instead, Agno decided to take control and signed up at Fitness Together, which provides private one-one-one sessions with a personal trainer.

Four months later, he's down about 70 pounds and his 16-month-old daughter and two stepchildren have a dad who always wants to play outside at the beach or the park.

"Before I just wanted to watch TV and eat McDonald's and play video games," he said.

These days, Agno hardly touches fast food, generally skips the plate lunches and stays away from white rice as much as possible.

The hard part has been giving up frozen drinks.

"I really like my Icee drinks and my slushies," he said.

Diet is only part of the equation, though. The real satisfaction comes from the workouts, Agno said.

"It's a lot of hard work, but after it's all said and done and you get out of there and there's all that sweat dripping, it feels so good," he said.

At Fitness Together, a small gym in Manoa Marketplace, Agno works with a trainer who keeps him moving with ball chest presses, squats, medicine ball twists, staggered push-ups and other exercises.

The formula for last Wednesday was three upper body sets, three lower body sets and three core movement sets, followed by three minutes of cardio before starting the circuit again.

After 45 minutes of circuit training, it was 15 to 30 minutes on one of the cardio machines: a recumbent bike, an elliptical or a treadmill.

The workouts are more aggressive on the days that he works with the trainer, though, which keeps him coming back. He likes having someone to keep track of his progress, correct his movements and keep encouraging him to get up and go. Because the sessions are private, the trainers have started feeling almost like family.

"The minute I talked to Keoni (Subiano), I got the feeling I was welcome there. He doesn't make you feel inferior. He doesn't make you feel like you're out of shape and he doesn't make you feel down about yourself. You just come in and work out."

Agno signed up for the 12-week body transformation program in December — it costs about $3,000 — and saw progress, so he kept going.

"He does a lot of work, but the key is that it's really efficient," said Subiano, who owns Fitness Together. While some things might stay the same, such as the full body circuit training, the exercises change and the program works in three phases to keep the body stimulated with new routines, he explained.

Rather than focusing on body building, at Fitness Together the workouts are designed to train the body for daily activities. In Agno's case, that might be picking up his daughter, Subiano said.

Agno has a lot of motivators: compliments from his family, having to rummage around for clothes that aren't too big and seeing the results in the mirror.

If that doesn't get him moving, the fact that he has to pay for the session regardless of whether he shows up does. A missed session costs about $75.

"That's the hard part about it is getting yourself in there on days when you wake up in the morning and just kind of want to lounge and relax," Agno said. "Once you're out of the house and you're on your way, there's nowhere else to go."