Extreme Fitness says Bob Richardson lost 252 pounds at its gym.

What it fails to mention is that he also had gastric bypass surgery, an operation to treat morbid obesity which shrinks the size of one’s stomach.

It’s a fact the popular fitness chain — with 13 gyms across the GTA — left out when it awarded Richardson the $60,000 grand prize in a recent weight-loss competition, and something it has not included in the subsequent promotional material.

“It’s irrelevant,” said Extreme Fitness CEO Jim Solomon. “We are celebrating a guy who worked hard and got unbelievable change in his life.”

Richardson joined the gym about a month after his gastric bypass in July 2010. He entered the weight loss contest last January and lost 41 pounds during the 60-day challenge. Three other people lost more than he did during the contest.

Some of the runners-up are accusing the company of false advertising and rigging the competition purely for marketing purposes.

Shane Kelly, one of the top-four finishers, has rejected his $3,000 prize package, which includes a year’s membership to the gym. He has also filed complaints against the company with the Better Business Bureau and Advertising Standards Canada.

“I feel like they undermined the entire competition and the hard work of everybody else,” Kelly said.

A recently published newspaper ad and flyer for the gym features Richardson with the bold headline: “LOST 252 lbs!”

“It’s time to make your weight loss dreams happen . . . TODAY!!” the flyer goes on to state, without mentioning Richardson’s surgery.

“Bob Richardson lost over 250 lbs at Extreme Fitness,” reads a separate news release forwarded to media and all the gym’s members, again without mentioning the surgery.

Solomon said he does not think the advertisements are misleading.

“I’m not a doctor, but I’m sure there are cases where you can find where people have (gastric bypass) surgery and they don’t lose weight. . . . It’s through a lot of work that (Richardson) has accomplished what he accomplished.”

“That’s baloney,” said Dr. Chris Cobourn, medical director of Mississauga’s Surgical Weight Loss Centre. “He lost 250 pounds because he had a bypass.”

Cobourn said it would be a “miracle” to lose 25 pounds a month — Extreme Fitness claims in its ads that Richardson lost his weight in the 10 months since he joined the gym — simply from working out in a gym and adjusting your diet.

“If this fellow has lost 250 pounds and he had a gastric bypass, I would attribute the overwhelming majority of his weight loss to the bypass.”

Gastric bypass surgery is covered by OHIP as long as it is prescribed by a doctor. Typical weight loss ranges from 65 to 80 per cent of excess body weight, within about two years of surgery. However, weight can be regained without proper coaching to control eating habits and portion sizes.

The “ExtreME 60-Day Challenge,” was a contest open to all of the gym’s members to achieve fitness goals, including weight loss, as defined by the gym’s personal trainers.

The $60,000 grand prize included a two-year lease of a BMW 323, three months rent at a furnished Liberty Village condo, a Las Vegas vacation, a year of unlimited tanning and $9,000 cash, among other prizes.

Kelly, a 36-year-old IT manager who lost 42 pounds in the course of the contest, found out about Richardson’s surgery by discovering his blog a few days after the competition ended.

“Follow me through my life-changing experience of weight loss through the Gastric Bypass Surgery that I am having on July 29, 2010,” the “About Me” section reads.

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“I was quite shocked, obviously, to read what I was reading,” Kelly said.

He contacted some of the other runners-up, and they wrote a joint letter to Extreme Fitness about what they had discovered.

“I figured they wouldn’t change the winner, but maybe they wouldn’t advertise the guy,” said runner-up Carl Clements. “I’m not a sore loser, but I don’t like being cheated.”

Clements lost 44 pounds, the second-most in the competition. Richardson lost 41 pounds in the 60-day challenge.

But Extreme Fitness was fully aware of Richardson’s surgery when he entered the contest, and when it produced the promotional material. “Of course we knew,” Solomon said, adding again that it was not relevant.

The contest was not strictly about weight loss, he said; it was also about the positive lifestyle changes contestants had made. On that front, Richardson won “hands down,” Solomon said.

Clements wants a better explanation. He thinks Extreme Fitness picked Richardson strictly to build an advertising campaign.

“So they get to put that he lost 250 pounds on a poster, sell a bunch of memberships.”

Richardson, 41, who lives in Ajax and works out at Extreme Fitness’s Pickering gym, said he decided to have the gastric bypass surgery when he realized he could no longer play with his 14-year-old son, or do even simpler things, such as tie his shoes. “It was all about my family,” he said.

He joined the gym as part of his post-surgery exercise plan.

Richardson refused to share his actual weight — now or before his surgery — but he attributes his dramatic weight loss to a multitude of changes in his lifestyle, not just the bypass.

“I know that I lost my 252 pounds due to a lot of hard work and determination to change my life, and my dedication to my family,” he said.

Richardson said he has “no comment” about whether Extreme Fitness should have mentioned his surgery in their ads.