Jose Matos (32), who lives in Utah, USA, still remembers the doctor’s warning that he would not see his two sons graduate from high school unless he lost weight and improved his health.
He enjoyed salty fast food, frozen food, and sugary drinks, and at one point, he weighed 237 kg. This was due to his appetite of eating three hamburgers, large French fries, and soda in one meal. He estimated that he consumed about 6,000 kilocalories (kcal) a day. This was 2.4 times the recommended calorie intake for adult men (2,500 kcal).
He had type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and chronic pain all over his body, including his back and knees. In 2021, he was on the brink of death due to diabetic complications (diabetic ketoacidosis). He tried dieting several times to escape the shadow of death, but failed every time. Then, a critical incident occurred. He was struck by Bell’s palsy (a type of facial paralysis). This paralyzed the right side of his face. The exact cause of this disease has not been identified, but obesity is known to be one of the risk factors.
The facial paralysis lasted for three months and took a year to fully recover. It was a turning point in his life.
He changed his diet and started exercising. He lost 68kg, from 237kg to 170kg. He no longer needs to take blood pressure medication or daily insulin shots. And he is still working toward his goal weight of 109kg.
He was named a 2024 model by a major fitness chain, and his story was recently featured on NBC’s Today.com.
Mr. Matos cited the following as the secrets to successful weight loss: ▽concentrating protein intake, ▽suppressing appetite, ▽maintaining an exercise philosophy, and ▽establishing a support system.
Working in marketing at a company, he connected with a health trainer who was the husband of a coworker and started to change his eating habits based on his advice.
I stopped eating processed foods, frozen foods, and fast foods, and focused on eating protein-rich foods like chicken, steak, and fish. Experts say that high-protein foods are very filling and help suppress appetite. I limited my carbohydrate intake and carefully recorded what I ate every day to see if I was consuming the right amount of calories.
“I eliminated all the food that I normally eat from my house. I stopped drinking soda and mostly drank water. I avoided eating out, and when I really wanted my favorite pizza roll, I only ate one,” he told TODAY.com.
I combined exercise with diet.
The first thing he tried was walking for 30 minutes a day. He then added functional movements like squats at home. “I slowly built up the habit of exercising,” he recalls.
After losing some weight, I started going to the gym. I worked out my upper and lower body muscles by pushing and pulling various machines.
When I finished my workout, I burned fat and kept my heart rate up by working out for 30 minutes on a treadmill or an elliptical machine where I put my feet on the pedals and moved the handles back and forth.
He tried the drug for several months, but it didn’t help him lose weight and he started having side effects, so he stopped. “It’s better to work out hard, put in the time, and put in the effort,” he said.
He said the support group around him was a huge help, as he learned from coworkers, health trainers, and others that not only were the skills needed to stay healthy, but that it was also important to build a lifelong habit rather than something that could be done overnight.
He currently works out six days a week. Sometimes, when he doesn’t feel like working out, he looks at pictures of himself when he was at his heaviest to get motivated.
He sees exercise as a privilege. His philosophy on exercise is: “I know I should do it, I know I want to do it, and I can do it.”
2024-09-12 21:48:29