At 5:15 p.m. on a Tuesday, Eric King zipped into the Athletic Club of Bend parking lot in his Volvo SUV, straight from Bend City Hall and still dressed in slacks and a button-down business shirt. The city manager flung his gym bag over his shoulder and charged toward the locker room.

Work was still on his mind: The following day he would be orchestrating a meeting between local higher education leaders and state legislators from out of town. Two days later he was scheduled to fly to New Zealand for a two-week job exchange.

He needed a good workout to rinse his stressed mind, the way a shower can clean his body.

By 5:30 p.m. he was clutching hand weights and lunging from side to side at the direction of a fitness class instructor and to the beat of the loud and appropriate pop lyric: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” The strenuous workout went from ab crunches to deep squats to shoulder-strengthening weightlifting. King bared his teeth. Sweat stains spread across his gray T-shirt.

After an hour of this, his mind had stopped spiraling with worry. He could remember the bigger purpose of the following day’s meeting, and felt more relaxed about it. He looked forward to the cool places he would go running once he got to New Zealand.

Intense workouts, which he’s started doing regularly over the past year, have helped King handle his all-consuming job.

“I’m more efficient and focused at work, although there’s no data to back that up,” he said with a smile. “I’m sleeping better and able to cope with stress.”

He also has a smaller waist and more defined muscles. Over the past year and a half, he’s lost more than 20 pounds.

Life over fitness

King, born and raised in Madison, Wis., was academic, responsible, hard-working. He at one point thought he might be an architect, but later studied economics and sociology at the University of Wisconsin. He earned a master’s degree in urban and regional planning at Portland State University and worked for the city of Portland for almost a decade before becoming Bend’s assistant city manager in 2007. When he landed the job as the city’s top executive at age 33 in 2008, he was the youngest city manager known to Bend.

Growing up, King was a string bean who actually wanted to gain weight. But then he hit his 30s, and his metabolism changed.

He and his wife, Martha Ketsdever, had two kids, a game-changer that cut into his backpacking and bike riding.

“It took me a while to recover from those early stages of parenting where you struggle to find an appropriate life balance,” he said. “This was compounded by the fact that I came into a high-profile, stressful job during one of the worst economic times in Bend and had to devote a lot of energy to my role as city manager. Health and fitness definitely took a back seat to these challenges and I don’t think I had a strong enough foundation, a core fitness regime, to help me manage the stresses in my life.”

King said he worked out from time to time, but not in a strenuous or focused way. Mostly he went to the gym to fulfill his need for some “alone time,” he said. He spent increasing amounts of time decompressing in the steam room, he said, like he was going to a spa.

“I think I exercised at this minimal level to justify eating anything I wanted, which tended to work in my 20s. However, I learned by gaining weight, albeit at a very slow pace, that I need to change my diet and exercise regularly to stay fit. I also needed to get away from my Midwestern comfort food diet that included a lot of dairy and foods that were salty and high in fat — ice cream, french fries, pasta, etc.”

In 2011, at 5 feet 11-inches, he peaked at 192 pounds.

Getting in shape

His trajectory started shifting about two years ago, when an executive coach he was working with told him he looked stressed. That bugged him.

In spring of 2011, Ketsdever suggested he join her for a strength training class at the Athletic Club of Bend. He started going with her, and it felt great. Sometimes he and Ketsdever put their kids in childcare at the club and worked out together. Sometimes they would get a sitter at home so they could go out after the class for a drink or dinner and call it a date.

In the fall of 2011, he joined a CrossFit gym, where he said he learned a lot about weightlifting and started seeing real changes in his body. The success was motivating, and made exercise a priority. He dabbled in road biking when the weather was good. He’s been running.

Now, he exercises about five times a week. He doesn’t have a rigid repertoire but he arranges his work schedule to fit it in. Because he’s the boss, he has the power to make it possible. “Meeting’s over,” he’ll say. “I gotta go.” He’s a planner, and highly organized, and he knows by heart his menu of available workouts. Running can fit in on a lunch break or after work. Interval-style strength classes happen Tuesdays and Thursdays after work, or on Saturdays. Every now and then he slips into the gym for some freestyle weightlifting.

Despite his planning and organizational skills, he said, he’s notorious for underestimating the time it takes to go somewhere, or to complete a task. He often tries to cram too much in a short period of time. But he doesn’t feel like he’s sacrificing work time or family time to accommodate his exercise, he said. He does have to deal with email more at home after the kids go to bed, he said. And, Ketsdever, who works as an account manager for an educational software company, said the family has adjusted to eating dinner later some nights, if they all want to eat together.

King said he maximizes weekend time with his two young kids. He builds Legos with his son on weekend mornings. The family often goes to the pool or a park, and, with some regularity, they travel to the coast, Portland or Seattle. They go to church, but somewhat inconsistently, he said.

He’s not always uber productive though. He is known to watch some TV. “I really like the ‘Mad Men’ series and love historical documentaries,” he said. “… On occasion we will watch some random reality TV shows.”

Eating better

Somewhere during his transformation into more of a fitness guy, he started eating better.

The CrossFit gym he had joined promoted Paleo-style eating, advocating a diet of meat, nuts, fruits and vegetables.

“I’ve gone a little Paleo,” he said. “Not super intense or anything. Less bread is how I’ve interpreted it. No bun on the burger.” Instead of cereal and milk for breakfast, he’s more apt to eat nuts and fruit. He keeps trail mix handy to curb hunger pangs throughout the day.

His biggest problem, food-wise, has been lunch. Ketsdever cooks healthy food at home, but when he’s on a lunch break downtown, it’s tempting to grab a burger and fries at a nearby pub, he said. He ‘s now more apt to order “Paleo-like” options, such as a steak salad, carne asada or a chicken Ceaser salad.

“I don’t count calories, but I look at them,” he said. For example, he will compare calories between various brands of snack bars before choosing which one to eat.

“Did you know margaritas have up to 700 calories!” he said, his eyes growing large. Instead of margaritas, he chooses clear liquids now, such as a gin and tonic a couple of times a week, or the occasional beer, he said.

Weight loss

By last summer, his weight had dropped to 170 pounds.

Weight loss wasn’t a huge goal when he started. A self-proclaimed Type A personality, he said, “it was more about me being in control of my health.” But as he lost weight and built muscle, people noticed and told him he looked good. “It was nice to have people recognize that,”he said.

King doesn’t plan to or need to lose any more weight, but he’s setting new goals: “… continuing to challenge myself in being more fit and perhaps getting to a place where I may want to compete in some type of endurance event down the road,” he said.

Those who spend time with King have noticed a change, and not just in his clothes size.

“He’s lost weight and is a lot happier about himself and his appearance,”said Ketsdever.

“Working as many hours as Eric does, it takes quite a commitment to get into and keep in shape, but the payoff makes it well worth it,” said Justin Finestone, the city’s communications director . “It’s easy to tell he has more energy.”