Robert Treglia, who hails from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, was always a bit overweight. When he used to be a kid. He was as a student athlete so he highly active that gave his life balance, which was until his teen years. After that, he started gaining weight, which was so problematic that he was left out of the team.
By the time he landed in his 30s, he could not walk down the street without having pain. He weighed 602 pounds. However, with some good advice from Reddit, a little perseverance and a lot of hard work, Treglia has successfully lost 400 pounds.
He said, “As I got older, my eating habits never changed. They actually got worse. There was always a new item out from a fast food place I wanted to try, or some amazing meal at a restaurant. I used food as a way to make myself happy. I couldn’t find happiness in myself, so food was my escape.”
Treglia tried losing weight by following Atkins and Weight Watchers. He tasted a bit of success with Weight Watchers, dropping down about 80 lbs., but he felt it was getting too expensive to fit his needs.
He said, “At almost $15 a week, it became too expensive. It’s bad enough to have to pay a lot more money for clothing, furniture to hold your weight, that now they are charging you a lot of money to even lose the weight.”
With some positive effects with Weight Watchers, Treglia was still extremely overweight and used to experience body pains, sleep apnea, and other issues.
Treglia said, “I wasn’t able to walk more than a few hundred feet without my lower back feeling like it was on fire and being stabbed with a knife. I also was not able to help with chores around the house. My wife would do the grocery shopping while I sat in the car waiting for her. I couldn’t do any yard work without being in terrible pain, so I would make excuses on why things couldn’t be done. My wife got used to my answer being no for everything.”
However, one night, he found a solution to his problem on Reddit.
He said, “I found a few subreddits on Reddit that help people lose weight. I read so many stories of people who lost 100 to 200 pounds that I felt I could try it too.”
Treglia read stranger’s updates on their own weight loss and discovered most of the successful weight loss subjects were using the MyFitnessPal app.
He said, “I watched videos on YouTube that explained how to use the app and meal prep food. I used that as a springboard into how to lose weight and learn how to eat correctly.”
Treglia added, “I had to relearn what was healthy and what was not. Growing up I always thought that if we cooked it at home it was healthy. After putting some of those meals into MyFitnessPal, I learned what I thought was a healthy meal was almost 2,000 calories.”
He realized that he used to eat 5,000 calories a day, so he had to make a choice. He mentioned, “I didn’t want my wife to find me dead in bed one morning because I had a heart attack in my sleep. I didn’t want her to feel guilt that it was her fault this happened. I wanted to get healthy so I could give her the life she deserved.”
With the help of the app, he began counting his calories. He also bought a Fitbit to track his steps. He said, “When I first started wearing a Fitbit, I would average around 3,000 steps a day.” After a few months, he noticed he lost 10 percent of his body weight and his clothing was loose.
Treglia said, “I was so excited when my first digit went from a 5 to a 4. That really showed me that I could accomplish this journey.”
After a year and a half, he decided to join a gym. He said that his cousin, who has a degree in exercise science and is an ACSM certified exercise physiologist, helped coordinate with his doctor an exercise regimen for him.
He started with cardio and resistance training, which helped him drop more than 390 pounds; he weighed 207. He said, “The changes to my body have been tremendous. When I look in the mirror I see definition; especially in my arms, neck, and shoulders.”
Treglia is now pretty excited about learning to ride a bike again, continuing walking hand-in-hand with his wife on vacation, and waking up every single day with a new lease on life.
When asked what people can learn from his history, Treglia said, “Don’t change everything at once, especially if you are very sedentary. Make small changes and let them snowball into bigger changes. This isn’t a race to hit your weight loss goal, so why treat it like one? We all didn’t gain this weight overnight and we aren’t going to lose it that way.” He explained there is no need to do much, just do something and stop making excuses. He added, “Just get out there and do it.”
