While opening restaurants with Bottle Cap Group, chef Troy Gagliardo was working 15 to 18 hour days, grabbing Bojangles and Sun Drops to get him through. While the snacks and sodas helped him stay on his feet for the long shifts, the long-term effects were starting to wear him down. He needed to do something, and decided to start small.

“I had already been honest with myself and said, ‘Hey, man, you’re overweight, you’re unhealthy, you don’t look good, you don’t feel good, you don’t feel good about yourself,'” he says. “But I had to get super selfish. So I started real simple with 15-minute walks in the morning. That was my priority number one, that’s what I had to do. And whatever energy I had left for the rest of the day, that’s just the way it was going to be.”

He began tracking what he ate using a fitness tracker, and realized his eating habits sometimes edged him up to 8,000 calories in a single day. By adapting the keto diet, combined with the walks, Gagliardo lost 40 pounds. He hopped on a Peloton, working to get his legs back into running shape. By the next summer, the summer of 2019, he was running again. In 2020, he dedicated at least an hour per day to exercise. He hasn’t stopped, logging nearly 1,000 days of exercising for more than 60 minutes since.

He’s lost more than 100 pounds, but his lifestyle has changed to become more healthy in other ways, too. He and Bottle Cap Group parted ways during the pandemic, once restaurants were beginning to open again. Gagliardo is now focusing on his spice company, Motown Spice Provisions, which provides custom blends to restaurants around Charlotte.

“[Bottle Cap] just really didn’t need anybody in that role right then, so I kind of stepped away from the kitchen,” Gagliardo says. “Without that happening, I don’t think I could be doing what I’m doing now.”

While prioritizing his physical health, Gagliardo couldn’t shake the feeling that taking that time to exercise was selfish. For someone born with a passion for hospitality, doing something that solely betters oneself can feel uncomfortably self-centered. So Gagliardo looked for a way to do good for others, while doing what’s best for his body.

This weekend, he’ll run a half Ironman. He’s partnered with the Dale Jr. Foundation to use the run as a fundraising opportunity for the nonprofit, which will build a garden with FeedNC in honor of the late Earnhardt family matriarch. Supporters can donate to Miles for Mimi’s Garden ahead of Gagliardo’s half Ironman, which will take place in September and cover 70.3 miles of biking, swimming, and running.

For Gagliardo, conquering the race will also help him conquer the fear of swimming he’s held since a terrifying incident on a Michigan lake near his childhood home, when he tried to keep up with friends who could swim well even though he couldn’t.

“I really felt like that was going to be it,” he says. “Water has terrified me my whole life — even just going out on boats with friends, I’ve avoided the whole thing. The whole other part of this was facing some demons, and water is one of them.”

And as it’s taking place near his hometown, Gagliardo hopes his 80-year-old dad will be cheering him on at the finish line.

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