2001年，当他的母亲突然去世时，胡安·马丁内斯（Juan Martinez）仍然是新婚夫妇。随之而来的是在短时间内的喜悦和悲伤的结合，使他失去了所有的平衡感。
“I just didn’t deal with it well; the grief felt overwhelming,” he recalls. “So, I ate. That made me feel better, so I just kept eating.”
On his wedding day, the Morro Bay, California resident weighed 230 pounds but his newly established eating habits quickly began to take their toll. He gained 50 pounds of “sympathy weight” during his wife’s first pregnancy, followed by 50 more pounds with their second child.
That’s when Martinez really began to notice what was happening.
他说：“听起来很奇怪，我不会意识到自己遇到了一个重大问题，但是在所有这一切期间，我仍然认为自己很大。”“但是我也避免看着自己的照片，很深，我知道发生了什么。”
That’s when he decided to make a change toward exercise and eating healthy, and it worked … but only for a few months.
多年以来，他会损失并获得同样的80-100磅，他说压力进食和其他生活变化最终导致他在2018年达到408磅。在家中，有三个小孩，他的身材阻碍了他的比赛能力以他的方式与他们在一起。在身体限制的那一刻，马丁内斯意识到他需要不同的策略。
At first, he intended to get weight-loss surgery, but some disrespectful comments from the surgeon left him fuming. An implication that Martinez couldn’t lose the weight on his own provided an unexpected surge of motivation, and he got to work.
For the first month, he made a dramatic change for him: cutting out fast-food. He stopped his daily habit of hitting the drive-thru for a “snack” before dinner, which led to him dropping 33 pounds. Invigorated, he canceled the surgery and kept going.
In the following two months, he started tracking his calories and macros with MyFitnessPal and lost another 35 pounds. As an accountant, Martinez says he loves data and seeing all of his numbers was an exciting part of his journey.
“I’m a data junkie, so food tracking is perfect for me,” he says. “I also got a smart scale and then a treadmill I could sync to my fitness tracker. All of that keeps me motivated because it’s easy to see progress.”
Once he could move more easily with his lighter frame, he began incorporating exercise with his kids into his existing fitness schedule. Not only did he do yoga with his daughter and lift weights with his sons, but they’d also regularly go on bike rides and run on the beach. He started coaching football and basketball for his children, too, which gave him the chance to run along the sidelines as he kept up with the action.
When it came to changes in his diet, the biggest shift was his mindset. Instead of being restrictive, like he had in the past, he appreciates having “reward meals” on occasion, as well as cake on birthdays and bigger meals on holidays.
现在225磅，他仍然认为自己是“正在进行的工作”，并说这是一段缓慢的旅程 - 他甚至开始了Instagram accountto reflect that — but he’s enthusiastic about the possibilities for what might be next, including a potential half-marathon.
“When I look at the few photos that I let people take when I was at my highest weight, I’m sad for that guy. I’m disappointed I let myself get to that point,” he says. “But I’m proud of how far I’ve come since then. I don’t plan on going back.”
