My name is Ryan, my friends call me Waldy. In January of 2004, I was 22 years old, weighed about 315 pounds and had a 52” waist. In less than four months I lost 60 pounds; within two years I lost a total of 125 pounds and could fit into a size 34 pair of jeans. Since I began losing weight, I have run four half marathons in the summers of 2005 and 2006. In June of 2007, I finished my first marathon in under 4 hours.


Between the ages of 18 to 22, my life consisted of eating junk food and fast food on a daily basis, drinking lots of pop and beer, watching television, and playing video games. The only exercise I got was going from the couch to the fridge. I knew that I was obese, this became very obvious to me when the only clothes I could buy were from the “Big and Tall” stores. I hated the way I looked. I hated walking into a room of people and knowing that I was by far the fattest person in the room. Deep down inside of me, I just knew that the first thing that came to people’s minds when they saw me was “What a Fat Ass!” I felt that I could never get respect from my thoughts or actions because many people do not seem to have any respect for the morbidly obese. I had a low self confidence and the bigger I got the lower my confidence became. My life was in a downward spiral, I knew I had to do something. Like many obese people, I tried dieting and I failed many times. I thought dieting just consisted of eating salads and vegetables. Within two weeks of starting a diet, I would end up going back to my old ways of eating junk food and drinking pop because I couldn’t maintain the dieting lifestyle that I had set up for myself.

In January of 2004, my mom purchased a treadmill for me. We were under the agreement that if I lost any weight then she would pay for the treadmill and if I did not lose any weight then I would be paying for the treadmill. This is where my initial motivation came from because I was a poor college student who didn’t have any money. The first goal I set for myself was to use the treadmill at least six times a week for at least 30 to 40 minutes. So each day after work I would go on my treadmill; I started off by alternating jogging for a couple of minutes then walking for a couple minutes. After a few weeks I was finally able to jog the entire time without walking. During that same month I started reading as many health articles that I could which pertained to losing weight. I wanted to give myself a proper knowledge base about weight loss because I was mentally committed to do whatever it took to not be fat anymore!

Many people ask me how I lost so much weight and how do I manage to keep it off. In my opinion, the most important aspects of losing weight are:

1. Learn as much as you can about losing weight
   -Talk to your doctor
   -Read books
   -Use reputable websites
2. Setting “Achievable” goals
3. Eating right
4. Daily exercise

“Losing weight is not easy, but it can be overcome. Keep in mind that you can’t continue doing the same things and expect different results.”

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