Be inspired by our That's Fit Success Stories. Then motivate others by submitting your own. Share how you've transformed your body through diet and exercise by sending us an e-mail at successstories [AT] thatsfit [DOT] com.

Name: Ted Hebert

Age: 35

Height: 5 feet 10 inches

Before weight: 211

How I gained it: I was always skinny growing up, even in my teens when I began to eat junk all the time. A normal lunch was two double cheeseburgers, six chicken nuggets, a large shake and a pie. Dinner was usually more of the same or canned spaghetti and meatballs. I also ate candy bars, chips and ice cream all the time. I never put on a pound because I was young and active. In 1995, I weighed 140 pounds, and was actually a little underweight. Then, I got engaged, settled down and became very sedentary. My day consisted of sitting at a desk with a bag of chips and a couple of candy bars. Then, I would eat drive-through junk for lunch. My wife is a fabulous cook, and would make wonderful lasagna, stuffed shells, etc. for dinner every night. In between all of that, I would down about two liters of soda every day. Exercise was something other people did, not me. Sit on the couch watching TV is what I did.

My sedentary, lazy lifestyle, combined with just awful eating habits, packed the pounds on pretty quick. Even though I knew I had gained weight, I was in denial. I kept telling myself everyone gets heavier as they get older. I told myself that for 13 years!

Breaking point: The breaking point for me was being sick all the time. Before I got heavy, I rarely even caught a cold, but during the last few years, I caught nasty colds all the time, and the flu would whack me at least a couple of times a year. In February of 2008, I had a terrible flu that I couldn't shake, so I went to see a doctor. On the way into the doctor's office, the nurse weighed me on the super-accurate medical scale. I could not believe what I weighed: 211 pounds! I stand 5 feet 10 inches tall, so that was way too heavy.

At that moment, it clicked. The thought of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, clogged arteries and possibly leaving my kids with no father ran through my head. Even though I knew for years I was overweight, I finally decided to do something about it. I also felt that if my body was in better shape I wouldn't get sick so often.

I realized I needed to change my attitude about food and exercise. I looked at the wrapper after eating a greasy burger, and saw all that fatty grease. It's pretty disgusting. Would you lick the grease off a burger wrapper? Heck no. So, why eat all the fat and grease in the burger?

Photo: Courtesy of Tony Posnanski

First he felt numbness in his arms, then his doctor said that weighing 420 pounds at 5 feet 6 inches, he had three months to live if he didn't choose to have a gastric bypass or turn his life around. If Tony Posnanski needed further motivation to lose the weight, he found it in his wife's constant worry that he was going to die of a heart attack. So in February 2008, the self-proclaimed lifetime yo-yo dieter decided to ditch the fads and started his "Anti-Jared" journey. Since then he's lost 216 pounds, to weigh in today at 204. (He dropped just below 200 before, but missed his muscular build.) Now that he's at a weight he feels comfortable with, and his wife and newborn to stay healthy for, he says he would "never put them though the torture of me being that heavy" again. Find out how he lost the weight and just what he's got against (Subway's) Jared.

That's Fit: Can you describe a typical day's worth of meals and any exercises you did when you were at your heaviest, 420 pounds?

Tony Posnanski: My exercises consisted of rolling around in bed, going to the bathroom and cleaning up after my dog because I was way too tired to take her out. I was very inactive. I went to the chiropractor four days a week because of back pain. I would consume close to 10,000 calories a day. On the way home from work, I would stop at three different fast food restaurants. I can remember sitting in my car at 2 a.m. with $40 worth of Taco Bell. I would eat over eight pounds of food at a Chinese Buffet. Believe it or not, I made Michael Phelps look like an Olsen twin.

With a slogan like "Eat Fresh," one can't be blamed for assuming that Subway is one of the healthiest fast food choices out there. And it's an association that Subway definitely benefits from -- but not if one obesity expert in Ireland has his way. Donal O'Shea is putting pressure on the government to limit the amount of Subway Restaurant chains that are permitted to open in Ireland because he feels their food is too high in fat and calories and therefore contributing to the obesity epidemic.

"There is a clear link between the number of outlets that [chains] like Subway have and obesity levels around the world," says O'Shea, pointing out that two sandwiches on the Subway menu have more than 1,100 each -- the Chicken & Bacon Ranch and the Meatball Marinara. But really, would you expect anything with the words 'bacon' and 'ranch' in the title to be low in calories?

Source

Subway has it all over McDonald's and Burger King in the spokesperson department. The weight-loss maven Jarrod doesn't wear make-up and clown shoes, and he definitely doesn't have an oversized plastic head. And, best of all, according to spokesman Jarrod, eating Subway can help you drop pants sizes.

But is this true?

By and large, and comparatively speaking, yes, it is true. In most cases, Subway is a healthier choice than McDonald's or Burger King menu items. However, just because it's the lesser of three evils, doesn't mean all Subway sandwiches are truly healthy. Case in point: The six-inch double-meat Italian BMT.

Source

When it comes to eating, we all could use a little reminder now and then about what we're putting in our stomachs -- and bodies. The NYC Department of Health thinks so, anyway. They've launched a series of posters that will be appearing in Subway cars all over the metropolis. Read 'em before you eat 'em is the theme of the campaign -- click on the thumbnails below to see the ads:

What do you think of the posters? Personally, I think this is a fantastic idea -- right up there with calorie counts on menus. Realizing how bad (or good) your favourite fast foods meals are is the first step towards making healthy choices every day.

Source

If you have a diet soda instead of a regular one, do you think that means you have more "room" for a big piece of cake? It sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it? Odds are the piece of cake would be more calories than the soda, and what does one thing have to do with the other anyway?

According to Brian Wansick PhD, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, that type of reasoning isn't unusual. In the Journal of Consumer Research, Wasnick states "We found that when people go to restaurants claiming to be healthy, such as Subway, they choose additional side items containing up to 131% more calories than when they go to restaurants like McDonald's, that don't make this claim."

So when we perceive a restaurant as being "healthy," we become more liberal in our choices -- potentially choosing more calories than we might have consumed at a restaurant with fewer healthy choices. Wansick calls habits like ordering cookies to go with your low-cal sub the "halo effect." While having cookies or other treats isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, it's the fact that many people are consuming these calories mindlessly; they aren't viewing them as treats, but more of a regular item that they have made space for by eating foods that they perceive as healthy.

Remember, restaurants don't always tell the whole-truth-and-nothing-but about their nutrition information. Check out Bev's post and learn why it's more like the whole-lie-and-a-bigger-butt.

Source

Counting every last calorie, weighing portion sizes on a tiny kitchen scale, and carrying around a food nutrition chart will certainly help a person lose weight. That said, this kind of dietary micromanagement may also be enough for someone to become too frustrated to continue to be so fastidious. Middle ground is typically found in the popular saying: "I'm just going to eat healthy." No question about it, this is also a good approach. However, unlike the scale-toting food micromanagers, simply "eating healthy" can still get us into a bit of trouble -- and it's usually because we know we're eating healthy.

A report in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals that people eat up to 131 percent more calories in sides, drinks, and desserts at Subway than at McDonald's. This is likely because the meal these people originally chose was a healthy option, thereby making it seem OK to add some not-so-healthy menu items to their tray.

Source

A recent report reveals that fast-food kid's meals have too many calories. This would be the point that you say "No, duh!"

Quite unsurprisingly, nearly every combination of the kid's meals at KFC, Taco Bell, Sonic, and Chick-fil-A are too fattening. Restaurants -- like McDonald's and Burger King that offer apple slices or other options instead of fries fared a little better. Subway came out on top, with 12 of its 18 possible kid's meal combinations under a reasonable amount of calories.

The study deemed a reasonable amount of calories as 430 -- based on the fact that the average 8-year-old should eat 1,200-1,300 calories a day.

Check out your knowledge about fast food and calories -- take this AOL Health quiz!

Source

Brie Cadman over at Divine Caroline gives a humorous and right-on run-down of the 10 worst fad diets. Sure these diets, like Slim Fast, The Cereal Diet, The Subway Diet, and Dr. Siegal's® Cookie Diet™ might work -- try them and chances are, you will lose weight -- but if you're looking for weight loss that sticks around or if you want to just plain enjoy your food, these diets are, as Cadman calls them -- just plain ridiculous.

Cadman says of Slim Fast that yes, you will lose weight, "until you grow so bored and tired of eating the exact same thing for two meals a day you quit, and realize that -- wow -- there are a lot of other foods out there that cost a lot less. Say, fruits and vegetables."

About The Writing Diet, Cadman can't figure out why all writers are not size twos because according to Julia Cameron, author of the new book The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Sized, they should be. Cameron says that people overeat not out of hunger, but because of emotion. Says Cadman: "By writing daily, we tap into our emotions, and put them on the page instead of in our mouths. While I can concede that having your hands on a keyboard will prevent them from grabbing a bag of Doritos, I can't figure out how sitting on your butt is supposed to make it smaller." One of Cadman's readers disagrees, stating that the book does a pretty good job of promoting exercise too.

Source

It's easy to let your calorie consumption get away from you if you're not careful. This is especially true when you think that you're eating healthy.

A report in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals that people eat up to 131 percent more calories in sides, drinks, and desserts at Subway than at McDonald's. This is likely because the meal these people originally chose was a healthy option, thereby making it seem okay to add some not-so-good menu items to their tray.

A somewhat related problem occurs when we consume too many calories from healthy foods. If that sounds confusing, allow me to explain. An apple is healthy, right? Yes. So, that means that it's okay to eat five of them in one sitting? Not really. Those five healthy apples just cost you 550 calories. Granted, that's far healthier than getting this many calories from, say, cookies, but they are calories, nonetheless. If you're looking to prevent weight gain, it's vital that you stay on top of your calories, be them from healthy apples or cookies from Subway.

Source

If you're trying to eat right, then eating out can be a challenge. Just choosing a restaurant with a healthy image isn't enough to ensure that you're getting a healthy meal, however. That much was proven by researchers who found that diners eating at Subway routinely underestimated the number of calories in their meal. Not only that, diners who ordered subs also were more likely to add on a high-calorie side item, apparently because they thought their meal was light enough to warrant it. But when you put a 12-inch BMT and a Big Mac side-by-side, the BMT actually has an additional 300 calories!

The study authors insist they aren't trying to slam Subway, but are just trying to draw attention to the role marketing plays in people's eating habits. Subway -- and other similar restaurants -- can offer you a healthy lunch, you just have to be a savvy consumer.

Source

In this busy world, it's sometimes hard to avoid fast food restaurants. But though you may find yourself in a situation where you don't have a choice of where to eat, you can always choose what to eat. MSN has published this list of the worst fast food offenders, so at the very least, if you find yourself at ones of these eateries, avoid getting:

• McDonald's Deluxe Breakfast weighs in at 1220 calories
• BK's Triple Whopper with Cheese is a hearty 1230 cal, 85 g of fat. That doesn't even include fries
  
• Taco Bell Fiesta Salad. You'd be better off not getting the salad here - it's 860 cal
• Pizza Hut's Stuffed Crust Meat Lovers has 1000 calories, 82 g of fat in two slices
• Cinnabon's Caramel Pecanabon has 1100 calories, 56 g of fat
• Boston Market's Chicken Pot Pie has 750 calories
• Subways Double Meat Classic Tuna has 790 cal, 55 g of fat
• Domino's ExtravaganZZa Feast deep-dish pizza has 860 calories, 46 grams of fat in two slices
• KFC's Mashed Potato Bowl With Gravy contains 690 calories and 31 grams of fat
• If you must have dessert, by all means, stay away from Dairy Queen's Caramel CheeseQuake Blizzard - it has 1290 calories!

For more items to avoid, check out our How Many Calories feature!

Source

The SUBWAY restaurants near my house are doing a neat little promotion today. SUBWAY is giving a free Fresh Fit for Kids Meal to parents who bring in their children, ages 12 and under, with a photo of their children engaged in an act of fitness.

I love the way SUBWAY offers healthy choices, and promotes eating healthy as a whole. Going this extra step forward and rewarding children for their fitness accomplishments is an awesome idea, and they deserve a big high five for doing so. Check with your local SUBWAY to see if they'll reward the fit child in your life too!

Source

Is the low-carb craze over? What appeared to be a fad that began in large part with the onset of the Atkin's Diet seems to be slipping away at some restaurant chains these days as "catering to the mass public" returns.

No surprise there, really. Although low-carb dieting is not a fad, the food industry milks whatever is popular for as long as possible sometimes before returning to a standard, "please all" menu that gets more people in the doors. It's all about business.

Are you carb-conscious? Evidence for and against this type of diet can be used either way to sway public opinion, but you must choose the type of diet best for you -- and acknowledge the "fads" that sweep restaurants these days -- even when the "fad" does not exist.

Source

One of the most annoying things about relying on public transportation is that it never seems to arrive on time when you need it to. According to an analysis of statistics from NYC's Metro Transit Authority, skinny girls could be one of the major reasons your train gets delayed.

Huh?

It's not as out there as it sounds. "Sick customer" is listed as the Number 3 cause of disruptions between October 2005 and October 2006. According to MTA personnel, these ill passengers are often women who faint during the morning rush hour after going on crash diets.

As reported by New York's Early AM newspaper, "You have women trying to get their bodies tight for the summer and they won't eat," said Asim Nelson, a Transit emergency medical technician based in Grand Central Station. "Not eating for three or four days, you are going to go down. If you don't eat for 12 hours you are going to get weak."

So have some breakfast, and quit holding up everyone else's commute!

(Thanks to Gawker for the link)

Source