Watch this dad’s amazing journey to stay fit.
Video Credit: Facebook/ Men’s Health
In today’s society that is moving towards a more sedentary lifestyle, it is very important for all people to stay active and healthy throughout their lives. You can’t deny that people who share their weight loss pictures also inspire others to follow their weight loss journey. And this dad did just that!
Jeremiah Peterson decided to get serious about weight loss when a family hiking excursion last summer proved to be too taxing for his then 290-lb. frame.
“I remember being bent over heaving just trying to catch my breath,” the Missoula, Montana-resident tells PEOPLE. “When I looked up, I saw my wife and three kids, 10, 8 and 7, easily hiking, talking and laughing with each other, without me. It was a hard-hitting moment.”
He continued: “I felt sadness and shame at that moment thinking how I had let myself get to this, but so much deeper than that. If I continued to live like this, I would not live.”
When he returned home, Peterson, 39, began researching weight loss options and found a video about a transformation challenge. “It sealed the deal for me. I signed up knowing I was going to give this challenge every single thing I had,” he says.
Prior to losing weight, “a typical day for me was to not eat all day and then get home from work, drink a few beers and eat a big dinner,” says the antique store owner. “Putting my body into starvation mode and then overeating made my body blow up like a balloon, quite literally. I had constant bloating, heartburn and awful stomach issues.”
Peterson tried a keto-based diet consisting of healthy fats, lean protein, and green vegetables. The new nutritious diet plan and twice-daily workout routine “made the weight start to pour off.”
He also started weight lifting six days a week, every day he focused on a different body part.
Peterson dropped 82 lbs. during the 150-day transformation contest, called the 1st Phorm Transformation Challenge, and he won the $50,000 grand prize.
Peterson shared his journey on Instagram and inspires others.
“I have so much more energy and I feel like I am always in a great mood. I feel like I have become the dad and husband that I really wanted to be,” says Peterson. “I feel like I have drive and ambition as I have never had before in my life, and I’m almost 40!”
“Instead of remembering all the good memories we had made on this trip all I can remember is this one thing that kept playing in my head over and over again,” Jeremiah wrote on his Instagram. “I found myself running out of breath and having to take breaks way before my 9, 7, and 6-year-old kids.”
“My transformation happened so fast because I did the workout program every day without any time off, which helped cut the fat so quickly. While I’m spending up to three hours exercising, a hike doesn’t really feel like working out, before I would go home and drink beer to de-stress, but now hiking relaxes me in the same way.
Going out in the mountains has made exercising so much better for me, I definitely couldn’t have gone to the gym in the morning, then back at noon and the evening.”
“I had the motivation to do it for health reasons for my family but the $50,000 didn’t do any harm either. I’m way leaner, I went from a size 42 in jeans to a 33, that’s a tonne of inches off my waist,” he said.
Jeremiah has a double major in Exercise Science and Coaching and provides guidance to people who, like him, have fitness goals they want to achieve.
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