Growing up in Wichita, Kansas, 30-year-old Matt Long was never apt to be idle.

“I guess you could say I was raised in an active household… there was always something going on, or someone coming to visit,” says Matt. “There was always work to be done and there wasn’t time to sit around relaxing and eating.”

Matt was in great shape in high school and like many young kids with rocketing metabolisms, he could eat anything. However, once he moved out of his parents’ home, Matt began to see his weight increase.

The seeds of unhealthy eating may have been planted in high school when his weight fluctuated dramatically by his own doing for sports.

As a freshman, Matt weighed 180 pounds for football season. When wrestling season came along, he lost weight dramatically, getting down to 119 pounds. Matt says he was “a cranky hot mess for the rest of the season.”

After wrestling, Matt put it all back on and then some for football, moving up to 200 pounds, repeating the cycle for the next three years.
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You think you’re busy, so busy that you just don’t have time to eat right and exercise? Well, if a young mother of four who works full time and runs a successful health blog can find the time, you probably can too.

Meet Josie Maurer, who, when she’s not busy raising her kids and working every day, keeps up with a health blog. She blogs from the perspective of a regular person with plenty of experience in diet and fitness to share with her audience in a fun and colorful style. I asked Josie to share her weight loss experience:

Was there a moment that made you think “enough is enough”?

In my mind I still looked pretty good in a mirror despite knowing my weight was creeping up. My family also patronized me by not being honest when I asked their opinion on my weight gain with the old, “you look fine, mom.” It was only after looking through some summer photos that my eyes saw the real picture. I thought to myself, “This is not me. This is not who I am.” That was back in 2006, and it was from that moment on that I made serious changes and never looked back.
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This is the story of Amber, a woman who didn’t take care of herself until she had an awakening while taking care of others.

Amber’s struggles with her weight were spawned from a teenage fight with chronic asthma. Before then, she was at an average weight. But through a combination of medications that caused weight gain and a spiraling depression, she began to put on the pounds – 100 pounds throughout her high school years to be exact.

The depression worsened as she dealt with the senseless cruelty that teenagers are capable of inflicting on people who are different than the ideal. Amber’s asthma made any hopes of turning things around even more difficult since she couldn’t participate in school sports or other activities.

Unfortunately, activities could not be avoided during gym class, when Amber was forced to run the track. She struggled as kids teased her. She even felt little support from her gym teachers, who she thought looked down on her as lazy.

While Amber continued to struggle with her weight after high school, things did get a little better. She met and married a very supportive husband, and the couple had a daughter together.

But the respite was short-lived, as Amber gained more weight after having her daughter and she fell further into the depths of depression. What made matters worse is she picked up smoking, not caring whether she lived or died.

Then hope arrived unexpectedly in the form of a job as a nursing assistant for a hospice agency. Taking care of terminally ill patients gave new meaning to Amber’s life, as she began to realize a purpose.

“These people needed me and I was able to provide comfort and love to them and their family,” Amber told us. “It was a wonderfully rewarding feeling. The feeling of gratefulness that people had for me started to make me appreciate myself.”
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Meet Leah Segedie. Leah’s incredible weight loss journey started four years ago, when she weighed 253 pounds. She was an athlete, but an eating disorder left her binging on food and maintaining a size 14. When her father was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare cancer caused by asbestos exposure, Leah was 25, with a rocking PR career, and a voice inside that told her she had to care for him.

Watch this video testimonial in which Leah shares the journey that helped her lose 170 pounds in four years, in the face of an eating disorder, her father’s death, and two pregnancies that delivered her two sons.

Click here to watch Leah’s True Weight Loss Story video.

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Courtney is a contestant on Biggest Loser 11! See her profile: Biggest Loser Courtney Crozier

Courtney Crozier says she’s never been thin, but for the first time in her life, she’s on her way there. Just nine months ago Courtney, a 21-year-old psychology student from Valparaiso, Indiana, weighed 422 pounds. Today, she proudly shares that she’s lost 121 pounds, for a current weight of about 301. “I’m not sure where I want to be,” says Courtney in regards to a final weight loss goal. “I know I want to feel good. I don’t want to put a number on it.” The passion, drive and commitment she has for her health, it’s certain she’ll get there.

“I have always been the happy, fun loving girl, no matter what size I was. But after losing over 100 pounds, I am SOOOO much happier and more confident than I have ever been in my whole life. I can’t even imagine how I’m going to feel or how amazing life is going to be when I get to my goal weight!”

Her story is somewhat different than others. “I was so out of touch with my body and myself,” says Courtney, admitting that it was a bad place to be, especially at such a young age. She says the irony of her situation is that her father runs, and she works at full-time, a Dairy Queen, while her mother is the general manager of a health club. There used to be a lot of DQ food in her diet, but not anymore.

The big change came for Courtney, an avid Biggest Loser fan, when she reached out to a season seven contestant via Facebook. The contestant offered her a ticket to the live finale, and Courtney was “overjoyed” at the opportunity.
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