I was the fat kid in school who everyone bullied. My mom and I were really close, and she was always encouraging me to lose weight. Even though I hated being overweight, I was comfortable, but I would go for walks and eat healthy foods to please my mom.
Unfortunately, when I was 14, my mom died unexpectedly in her sleep. I was so hurt and angry, and I didn’t understand why my mom was taken away from me like that. Since my mom was dead, I rebelled by returning to an unhealthy lifestyle. I took things to the extreme and tried to numb the pain with drugs and alcohol, but my biggest addiction was food. I would go to the drive-through twice a day, and with every bite, I was slowly killing myself.
Being overweight, I had a lot of health challenges, and when I went to the doctors, there were no scales that went above 400lbs, so they put me on a special scale and found out that I weighed 421lbs. The doctors told me that if I didn’t change my lifestyle, I would be dead by the age of thirty, but I still didn’t listen.
On March 30th, 2008, I was driving home in the dark, and I saw some headlights in the distance that blinded me. A drunk driver was driving on the wrong side of the road, he hit me head-on and I was seriously injured. I felt as if I was given a second chance, and it was after the car accident that I decided to change my life.
I bought a dog in 2005, and he became the only reason I got up in the mornings. Now, he was my fitness partner. I started my weight-loss journey by taking my dogs for walks every morning. There was a long hill near my house, and we would run down it and walk up it. I also stopped eating fast food and started eating healthy home-cooked meals.
A year later, I joined the gym, and I will never forget the day when I did my first pull-up. I couldn’t believe I could pull my weight up off the ground. A year ago, I could never have imagined this was possible.
After losing 211lbs, I had a lot of loose skin, so I had surgery to remove it, which boosted my confidence even further. I was dating a wonderful woman at the time, and she moved in to look after me during my recovery. That wonderful woman is now my wife. She is my biggest cheerleader, and I love her with everything in me.
I’ve always worked in real estate but was never passionate about it. Losing weight helped me find my passion, and that was to help others achieve what I had. So I quit my job, went back to school to study nutrition and fitness, and now I’m a personal fitness coach.
At 250lbs, I’m lighter than I’ve ever been my entire life, and it’s the best feeling in the world. I don’t believe my car accident was an accident. I believe it was a wake-up call from my mom. She knows me better than anyone, and it was going to take something drastic to get me back on the road to health. I’m sure she’s smiling down at me now, proud of the man I’ve become.
