How I Gained It: For as long as I can remember I have been overweight. As a child I never thought I was inactive. I played all of the neighborhood sports, league baseball, rode bikes, I was always outside with my core group of friends in Island Park, RI. It was my diet that led me to be overweight. I would consume pizza, fast food, chips, cookies and everything else under the sun. It really got out of control when I got my drivers license. I now had access to a job and a car and could buy anything I wanted to eat. It was like this through high-school, college, and even in my job on a tugboat. Tugboats can be a very sedentary lifestyle. There is not much walking around on a 100ft boat. With access to all of the boat’s food, I was eating a lot with not much exercise. It is a very unhealthy lifestyle. I work on the boat for 3 weeks and then I am home for 3 weeks. The time spent at home was sleeping and eating and drinking, that was all I did.

Breaking Point: I had always thought about losing weight but never gave it a fair try. I thought about it everyday. The hardest part for me was trying to find clothes. I would have to order them online or go to big and tall stores. There are only so many styles at those stores and I definitely didn’t like many of them. On January 1, 2012 I decided I needed to change, not just for being able to buy nicer clothes but for my health. The US Coast Guard is in charge of Merchant Mariner licenses and they have been cracking down on BMIs in the industry. I had my annual physical coming up in March 2012.  So I figured if I jumped into a healthier lifestyle I would have 3 months to shed some weight.

How I Lost Weight: My close friend Ryan suggested I read a book by the name of  The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. This book covers the paleo Lifestyle. Eating like our caveman ancestors. I figured I could eat meat and veggies and be happy with it. After diving head first into the book I adopted a paleo way of eating. I found it to be very easy especially while reading every paleo book I could get my hands on. During my March physical I had lost 40 pounds with little effort. In fact, my doctor and nurse were shocked when I walked in. The nurse even asked, “do you realize you lost 40lbs”? I jokingly said “I had no idea”. Then they bombarded me with questions about paleo because they had never heard of it. I decided against exercising and to focus on my diet. It was September 2012 and I was down 100lbs. 100lbs in 9 months! I started to exercise after that and have been to this day.

The weight loss has slowed down a bit but muscle weighs more than fat, right? I have lost 130lbs total. I go to the gym everyday and mix in cardio and weight lifting. I really enjoy it now. I never thought I would enjoy going to the gym. My biggest joy of losing the weight is helping other people. I love talking paleo and I have even started a blog to help my friends WWJME.com (What Would John Mack Eat?). I can’t tell you how happy I am. It truly is a life changing event. My new goal is to get to 220lbs and go from there. My even bigger goal is to help people with losing weight.

Age: 30
Height: 6′ 1″
Before Weight: 370 pounds
After Weight: 240 pounds

John Mack

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