Losing weight can be a challenging journey, but these inspiring stories demonstrate that significant change is possible with dedication and the right approach. From overcoming emotional eating to embracing healthier lifestyles, these individuals have transformed their lives and bodies through perseverance and commitment.
Judith Anthony: Finding Motivation for a Healthier Life
Judith Anthony, a 26-year-old from Orange, New Jersey, struggled with uncontrolled snacking throughout her childhood. "I would literally go to the store and buy $3 worth of the 25 cent potato chips. And I'd just sit there and eat them," she admitted. By her freshman year of high school, Anthony weighed 180 pounds, eventually ballooning to 257 pounds in college.
Despite her weight, Anthony, who is five feet, six inches tall, didn't perceive herself as overweight until a doctor suggested gastric bypass surgery during a consultation for a breast reduction two years ago. "It was very hard to hear," Anthony, who works as an overnight support counselor, said. "I looked at myself saying, at 257 pounds I have to do something."
Driven by this realization, Anthony joined Jenny Craig, incorporated Zumba into her routine, and adopted healthier eating habits. As a result, she successfully lost 117 pounds.
Edwin Velez: A Turning Point on Vacation
Edwin Velez, a 28-year-old teacher from Albertville, Alabama, faced challenges with his weight due to his Puerto Rican heritage and the prevalence of rice, beans, and fried meat in his daily diet. During college, tight finances led him to rely on cheap fast food options, causing his weight to climb to 320 pounds.
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The turning point for Velez came during a cruise with friends in 2011. Seeing a photo of himself from the vacation, he was "shocked" by his appearance. "I’d let myself get too far," he realized.
Determined to change, Velez committed to losing weight through exercise and eating several small meals a day. In just four months, he shed 101 pounds. He then incorporated weightlifting to build muscle and underwent skin removal surgery the previous year. Velez continues to maintain his healthy lifestyle by eating five small, nutritious meals per day.
Lori Filipiak: Finding Comfort Beyond Food
Lori Filipiak, 42, had always found comfort in food, often indulging in "the whole pizza with French onion dip, whole bags of chips, fast food I would get when no one was around." At her heaviest, Filipiak weighed 265 pounds. A difficult marriage at age 19 motivated her to make a change.
Filipiak recalled a particularly hurtful experience with her ex-husband, "I can remember being out with him and (him) introducing me as his cousin and not his wife. That was huge for me." She considered surgery two years prior, doing a lot of research about the surgery’s offered, surgeons in her area, and tried to lose the weight on her own with no success. With the help of the Texas Center for Bariatrics & Advanced Surgery, Filipiak's life transformed. "My life before surgery was so limited, and I didn’t realize it until after my surgery because of all the weight I was carrying around. My biggest frustrations were not being able to fit in certain clothes anymore and seeing my health deteriorate right in front of me and me being the cause."
Since the surgery, Filipiak feels like a new person. "My life now that I’ve had surgery is like living a new life as a new person, random people come up to me and tell me how beautiful I am (before surgery that didn’t happen). I can fit into clothing sizes that I haven’t in years. I don’t get winded walking up my stairs anymore."
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Gracie, Brad, and Mandy: A Family's Journey to Health
After her doctor recommended she lose weight, Gracie committed to lose weight with her parents. Gracie's parents, Brad and Mandy, joined to support her but soon after began seeing results themselves. The whole family started making changes after watching educational videos. “We realized that even when we were eating the right foods, we were eating too much. Now, at suppertime we’ll say to each other, ‘That looks larger than the size of your fist!’ We are empowered with knowledge,” Mandy shares.
Gracie began tracking. “We realized that she was using up all of her reds just on lunch,” Mandy says. “We became more aware of our food choices and started making substitutions, for example, olive oil spray instead of regular olive oil.”
Now Gracie and her mom invest time each night to prepare healthy meals for the next day. Also, they began spending less time on the couch and more time outside.
6 months later, not only has Gracie dropped 12 BMI points, but she also feels healthier. Mandy and Brad have both lost 24 and 35 lbs respectively. “We have been overweight our whole lives. We have yo-yoed through a lot of different diets together, but this feels different,” Mandy says. “Brad even has his diabetes under control and is off one of his medications.”
The key to their success was doing it as a family. “Before we would do a diet that I liked and then a diet Brad liked. Now we are all on the same team, which works much better. We keep each other accountable, but also fight less about food,” Mandy notes.
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Becky Cabral: Small Changes, Big Results
Becky Cabral lost 100 pounds by focusing on "one small change at a time." She acknowledged her love for junk food, TV, and laziness, which made extreme diets unsustainable. "For me, the key to success was one small change at a time."
Cabral provided examples of her gradual changes: "Going from soda to lemonade. Then to light lemonade, flavored water, fruit-infused water, and finally plain water. Going from no vegetables to hiding vegetables to a few microwaved frozen vegetables then learning to cook fresh vegetables and now I pack my meals full of vegetables."
Cabral emphasized that she learned something from every diet and exercise program she tried, which she then incorporated into a healthy lifestyle she genuinely enjoys.
Dara Sarshuri: From Surgery Consideration to Natural Transformation
Dara Sarshuri, a 35-year-old, weighed 390 pounds in February 2018 and was shocked by the number. "It was way more than I thought. I was just mad at myself. It really just hit me and I thought, ‘You got to do something. You are almost 400 pounds.’"
Initially, Sarshuri considered gastric bypass surgery and began losing weight in preparation for the procedure. In his first two months following an eating plan, he lost 55 pounds, followed by an additional 45 pounds by June, totaling 100 pounds.
At that point, he decided to forgo surgery. He had also started exercising, initially by walking, and eventually joined a gym, attending five days a week and continuing to walk on weekends. Dara Sarshuri lost 180 pounds in just 10 months this year just by diet and exercise.
"I am stronger than I ever thought I was. I never had any confidence and now I see how far I have come. I can run. I can do push-ups. I take these small victories."
Rachel Saintfort: A Daughter's Inspiration
Rachel Saintfort lost 121 pounds by eliminating fast food and soda from her diet. Although she was a confident person, after the birth of her daughter in 2007, things changed for Saintfort. Weighing 291 pounds, her highest, she decided to try dieting. But it wasn’t until her daughter turned 10 and one of her classmates called Saintfort “fat” that she made lasting changes.
"She looked so sad, and she’s trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal. At that moment it hit me that she’s suffering, and she’s being picked on or laughed at because of my laziness or my unhealthy choices," Saintfort told the magazine. She cut out fast food and soda and started doing daily three-mile walks around the lake in her town.
Jen Wagner: Finding Joy in Movement
Jen Wagner had always been athletic, but when she got married, she stopped working out and gained 100 pounds, reaching her highest weight of 240 pounds in 2017. "I felt like a stranger in my own body. I didn’t recognize my own reflection, and when I would see photos of myself, I was disgusted. I didn’t know who that was."
After six years of unsuccessful attempts with fad diets and programs, she committed to change in February 2018. She began with her diet, initially following a keto diet, then transitioning to a low-carb approach. Now she tracks her calories using MyFitnessPal and practices intermittent fasting. Jen Wagner has lost 88 pounds since February without even going to the gym.
Wagner also incorporates exercise into her routine by playing tennis, swimming, walking with hand weights, jumping on trampolines with her daughter, and doing yard work. "I never did something that made me miserable and not want to do it again," she explained. "I haven’t stepped foot inside of a gym even one time on this journey."
Her goal is to lose the 100 pounds she gained after getting married. "The thing I hear the most from people is that I look like a new person. I agree, since I often don’t recognize myself when I pass a mirror or a window, but more important than that, I FEEL like a new person! I feel like the person I had longed to be all those years I was overweight."
Kayla Mills: Groupon to a Healthier Lifestyle
Kayla Mills lost 70 pounds after taking exercise classes through Groupon. In April 2016, Kayla Mills decided to start losing weight because she said, she didn’t recognize who she was. “One morning I woke up, looked in the mirror, and cried for a while and then told myself to pull it together.”
When she first started to lose weight, she bought a month of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) boot camp classes on Groupon. She saw a lot of progress after just her first month and continued for a few more before she started working out on her own.
Eventually, 21 months later, she lost almost 70 pounds. “Since then, I have gained about 10 to 15 pounds, but I try not to focus on the scale… Weighing a certain amount can take away the joy and stress relief that working out has brought to my life,” she told the outlet.
Brianna Bernard: From Stay-at-Home Mom to Powerlifter
Brianna Bernard gained 70 pounds during her first pregnancy and weighed 245 pounds after giving birth. She struggled to lose the weight even a year after her child was born. “I stopped feeling like myself,” she told People magazine. “I was so busy being a stay at home mom, that my whole life was about my son and I didn’t take the time for self-care.”
Inspired by another woman's weight loss journey at a local gym, she began training two to three times a week, incorporating weightlifting, plyometrics, and boxing, while also changing her diet. Brianna Bernard lost 107 pounds and became a powerlifter.
One year later, she had lost 107 pounds and started doing powerlifting competitions. “I feel like a completely different person, and I am in so many ways,” she said. “Not just physically - that’s obvious - but the way I feel in my mind. It’s hard to even look back. It feels like a lifetime ago. Now I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do. If I can lose 100 pounds, I can do anything.”
Joey Morganelli: A Vegan Transformation
Joey Morganelli coped with food after the death of both of his parents. By the time he was 18, he weighed about 312 pounds, and that number eventually rose to 400.
After encouragement from a professor during his freshman year, Morganelli decided to try to lose weight. At first, he lost some weight by counting calories but his weight fluctuated for several months because he sometimes binged. One day he had a panic attack but thought it was a heart attack. He decided then that it was time to completely change his diet. He decided to go vegan and has lost 150 pounds.
“Since starting my weight loss journey, I have seriously learned so much about nutrition and what works for me that it’s becoming a passion of mine. If there’s one thing about Nutrition that EVERYONE knows, it’s that there’s always a new fad diet or there’s always a pill or some shakes to take … Over these past four years, I’ve learned so much about what my body likes and this is it.
Tucker Chorjel: A New Life After Bariatric Surgery
Tucker Chorjel's weight struggles began in childhood, fueled by emotional distress following his mother's departure and the loss of his grandparents. In 2018, he weighed 780 pounds and was living in his car to save money. Chorjel decided to prioritize his health and underwent bariatric surgery at UC Davis Health. By the end of 2023, he had lost 480 pounds.
Prior to surgery, Chorjel was told he needed to be in the 500-pound range for the surgery. Chorjel lost the weight, but his surgery date was extended, due to the pandemic and a leg infection. Finally, on Aug.
“After losing 480 pounds, I'm living a life I never thought I’d have,” he recalled. “I never thought I’d have the opportunity at 37 to have a whole new life.
Norma Alvarez: Overcoming a Dieting Saga
Norma Alvarez struggled with weight gain and obesity-related health issues, including sleep apnea, acid reflux, fatty liver disease, and pre-diabetes. “That started the dieting saga of doing everything I could to lose weight,” she said. “I did protein shakes, lemonade drinks, the cabbage diet, Weight Watchers. Sometimes I’d starve myself with only water. Each attempt resulted in some weight loss, but she’d always regain it - and more - within a few months.
She found herself increasingly tired and winded, and her knees hurt. Recognizing the need for a sustainable solution, she turned to bariatric surgery at UC Davis Health. Today, at 51 years old, she maintains a 100-pound weight loss since the surgery six years ago. She admits, it would not have been possible without the help of the bariatric team at UC Davis Health. When she understood that food would no longer be a coping mechanism, she reached out to the support team and quickly met with a counselor.
“They’re always an open door. UC Davis Health supported me 100%. I consider them my mini side family. The team is committed to helping the patients for the rest of their lives.
John Robinson: Perseverance and Transformation
Television audiences nationwide were amazed to see a Washington, D.C. VA Medical Center nurse shrink from 531 pounds to an astounding 316 pounds. Several years later, that fateful trip with his friend resulted in a phone call out of the blue from the producers of Extreme Weight Loss. “Basically, they wanted to know if I was still fat,” Robinson chuckled.
He took a leave of absence from his nursing job in the medical center’s Surgical Intensive Care Unit and attended a 90-day boot camp in Colorado. The camp was very hard for him. He attended his mother’s funeral the day before the filming was to begin. In honor of his mother and in spite of the dark days, he pressed forward with the boot camp. The potential contestants would often work out up to four and a half hours a day. By the time his 90 days were up, Robinson had managed to lose an amazing 125 pounds. Sadly, the boot camp participants are not guaranteed a spot on the show and in spite of his initial weight loss success; he was not selected to continue with the show.
Common Themes and Lessons Learned
These extreme weight loss stories highlight several common themes and valuable lessons:
- The Importance of a Turning Point: Many individuals experienced a specific event or realization that motivated them to take action and commit to change.
- Finding the Right Approach: Different strategies work for different people. Some found success with structured programs like Jenny Craig, while others preferred making gradual changes or exploring options like veganism or bariatric surgery.
- The Power of Support: Whether it's family, friends, or medical professionals, having a support system can make a significant difference in achieving and maintaining weight loss goals.
- Beyond the Scale: Weight loss is not just about the numbers on the scale. It's about improving overall health, increasing confidence, and enhancing quality of life.
- Consistency is Key: Sustained weight loss requires long-term commitment and consistency in healthy eating and exercise habits.
- Addressing Emotional Eating: Many individuals used food as a coping mechanism for emotional distress. Addressing these underlying issues is crucial for long-term success.