In our series the united states of obesity we’re not only covering the causes of the epidemic we’re also highlighting some of the biggest success stories from across the country like this one when I was six my parents got divorced we all kind of used food as a comfort to get through the divorce my weight just kept gradually increasing the older that I got when I was 18 we found out that my dad had stage four cancer I came home and my dad walked out and I didn’t know what was going on and he helped me and he said in my ear he said John I’m toast I’m done they were giving him optimistically six months to live I would go to a fast food restaurant and buy a bag full of food and that was my medication after his dad died his eating habits got WAY worse my lowest point was the first time I’d gone for a physical since high school the doctor had to send me to a fish market because they did not have a scale that would weigh me and they told me I was 540 pounds the doctor tried to tell me as plainly as he could that if I did not do something about this I was going to die at a young age that was enough for me to start trying I tried every kind of diet you can think of but I was still defeating myself by the late-night binges of something else there would be like stashes of coke cans and snack wrappers cookies hidden in places and I was laying awake late at night on Facebook and I saw an advertisement for joining a boot camp program I am starting this challenge for the first time tomorrow I made a video introducing myself and recording me cleaning out all of the crap food from our house he got through the first six weeks a little rough and I didn’t think he was gonna make it but he kept plugging away and it got easier and easier while I may be proud of what I accomplished I’m always looking to set the next goal absolutely that I’m going out there and not being happy or earth complacent before I’m out and before we meet John here’s a reminder of what he used to look like at five hundred and forty pounds I’ll tell you you’re not gonna believe what you see John come on out and join us make yourself at home so how so how much weight have you lost in total I’ve lost over 300 pounds and 297 of that was in the last 15 months yeah all through eating right and exercising and the stuff you hear your whole life when you started your journey did you you could take it this far absolutely not I you know I went to the the orientation for the first time for the gym and they had a class going on because it’s group exercises and I almost walked out because I was watching them do these aerobic exercises and jumping around with weights and I was like yeah I’m gonna die if I do this there’s no way I can do this and I was this close to walking out but thank God I didn’t is that your advice to people you know I’ve learned so much through this whole journey and there’s so many things that you could share and give advice and a lot of it is stuff like I said you hear your whole life and until you’re willing to put those things into practice those things aren’t gonna work for you and for me the key was finding a community of people who are like-minded who have goals to lose weight and eat better and be healthier so that you’re not doing it alone and finding that community and finding that group of people who’s gonna not only support you but also be doing those same things is the most effective accountable intimidation and you acknowledge that very intimidating to take that first step in there I want to ask because your wife is here and when you walked out I saw pride in your face absolutely what do you think of all he’s accomplished I think he’s amazing he’s put in a lot of hard work and discipline he’s endured a lot of challenges and failures but he just kept trying kept trying and he’s finally found his success story
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