Obese Man Told He'd Be Dead Within Five Years Reveals How He Lost 400lbs

A man who shed 400 pounds in the space of three years has revealed the small change that helped him begin his weight loss journey.

Aged just 20, Zach Muncy from Ohio was told by doctors he might not see his 25th birthday. Tipping the scales at 700 pounds, he was largely confined to a wheelchair with a bleak prognosis for his future.

"Everything was stacked against me," he told Newsweek. "I was battling depression and physically unable to walk more than a few steps, it felt impossible." But that moment in the doctor's office proved to be Muncy's catalyst for change. Now 26, Muncy, recalled that conversation.

He said: "My doctor told me I would be lucky to see the age of 25 given the number of health issues that kept popping up. So I took that as the motivation to finally work on getting my mental and physical health together."

Muncy's situation at the time was far from being an outlier; America is firmly in the grip of an obesity epidemic. According to figures compiled by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, 42.4 percent of U.S. adults have obesity while 9.2 percent have severe obesity. The CDC estimates that the prevalence for obesity among U.S. adults aged 20 to 39 is 40 percent .

Step by Step

Though Muncy was determined to remove himself from the extreme end of those statistics, getting started was tough. "The hardest part was definitely coming to terms with how far I'd fallen in terms of health," he said. "When I started this journey I was wheelchair bound."

"Everything was stacked against me," he said. "I was battling depression and physically unable to walk more than a few steps, it felt impossible."

However, in acknowledging his situation, Muncy was able to set himself small achievable goals. His weight loss journey began in July 2019 with one small change. "I knew I needed to take it day by day, step by step. I started with doing exercise on the edge of my bed."

Muncy then built on that foundation, saying he then began "laying out my own nutrition plan and grocery lists with a calorie goal and, with the help of my family and friends, cooking the meals."

Those first few steps soon yielded positive results. "Within the first four months I was down over 70 lbs," he said. By that point, Muncy was spending "countless hours" online learning about nutrition and was working towards not only a healthier body but also a healthier mind.

"I got back into therapy and worked through my eating disorder," he said. "I was working day by day, step by step slowly learning to love myself more than the day before."

Moderation Over Deprivation

While weight loss is achievable, studies have shown that it can sometimes be difficult to keep it off in the long term. A study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that just 20 percent of Americans who lost weight were able to keep from regaining it.

From the start though, Muncy took a different, more sustainable, approach to his diet that he describes as "moderation over deprivation." It was more small changes that yielded big results.

"If I wanted pizza, I had pizza, I just got a small one instead of an extra large for myself," he explained. "Once I realized that I could still eat the food I enjoyed while still losing weight if I just tracked everything and maintained my calorie goal it unlocked a whole new realm of possibilities and mindfulness about eating for my physical and eating for my mental health."

Again, setting himself small achievable goals as part of a moderate approach was crucial to sustained access. "Once that mindset was in place and I lost 70 pounds with it, I finally understood I could do this. I built the road I knew I'd be successful on and I just had to walk down it," he said.

It's a road he's been walking down for the past three years and one that has yielded incredible results. Muncy has lost over 400 pounds. He's also taken to regularly chronicling his weight loss journey on TikTok, posting under the handle Zachloss.

In 2020, there were days when Muncy would barely move. That's changed dramatically since then. "I go to the gym three days a week for strength training and aim for 10,000 steps every day as a baseline goal of overall movement," he said. "If I want a piece of cake I make it work within my daily calorie goal."

Unhealthy Relationships With Food

Muncy hopes that posting videos to social media chronicling his journey will inspire others struggling like he was to make the necessary changes, whether it be through seeking therapy or taking those first important steps to achieving a weight loss goal.

"If you think you have an unhealthy relationship with food, you probably do," he said. "Keep your mindset on a day by day basis. don't think about the 200 lbs you need to lose for the long term, just the baby steps you can complete on a daily basis that will make the healthy foundation you are trying to build even more secure for the long term."

Muncy's journey is far from complete, though. Not only is he continuing to lose more weight, but he's currently in the process of trying to raise funds to have the excess skin left over as a result of his drastic weight loss removed through surgery.

"My next loose skin removal surgery is in March of 2024 and that will be the next big chapter in my journey," he said. Every weight loss journey has a beginning but by making those small, realistic changes, slowly but surely, Muncy is reaching the end of his.

Sustainable and Safe Weight Loss

Martin Sharp, who is a personal trainer, fitness coach and the founder of Sharp Fit For Life, believes a sustainable and safe amount of weight to lose on average is around 2 pounds per week.

Sharp told Newsweek, when it comes to sustainable weight loss, the key is "finding something that fits in with your lifestyle is the main thing because weight loss (or preferably fat loss) takes momentum, repetition, perseverance and consistency towards a goal."

Muncy's success has been grounded in the fact his approach is tailored to his own specific needs and motivators and that's something Sharp sees as a crucial starting point in any weight loss or fitness journey.

"Understand what you truly value, not the things others expect or the to-do list that you've read about eating healthy and exercising daily," he said. "Your true deep down values that drive you and get you out of bed each day, is where you can start."

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