On Monday, February 11th, we started sharing stories about how people like you and me made a commitment to getting in shape and improving their quality of life. Many of us make fitness resolutions at the start of the new year, but without a plan, it is easy to get side tracked and fall back into old routines. We hope some of these success stories will help you stay motivated and strive to reach your own fitness goals.

For our final story of the week, we want to spotlight Shaun H.

On January 10th, Shaun hit a huge milestone: he lost TWO HUNDRED pounds and he did it ahead of his goal!

Check out his story in his own words below.

My life before I began losing weight was what I figured was a typical American life. I worked, supported my family, came home, enjoyed the rest of my day watching tv, eating dinner and getting up and doing it all over again. My days off consisted of watching tv or staying on the computer all day, little to no activity at all. Walking to bed was the extent of my physical activity. My “a-ha moment” was Thanksgiving day 2009. We were at a friend’s house getting ready for dinner and I was outside with the kids. They said, “Daddy come play with us,” and I said ok. About 10 minutes in, I was exhausted and I said, “Daddy’s gotta sit down.” The look on my kids’ faces broke me.

Then my wife said, “I love you, but you’ve got to do something or you’re going to die.”

SOMETHING HAD TO CHANGE!!!!! The very next day, I went to the first gym I found and dropped $400 to sign up, because that’s where you go when you think weight loss, right? Or, so I thought. I trained at the gym for about a year, I bought every fat burner, every weight loss pill or diet thing that I read or heard that worked. You know what I ended up with? An empty pocket book and little to no results. I got frustrated so I just continued to bust my hump harder. I was so focused on the gym that I didn’t realize I was driving my family away. I would work 14 hours a day and then hit the gym 2 hours a day, so as you can calculate I was never home. My wife was missing me, as well as my kids. They were always asking, “Why is daddy never home”?

Heart breaking…

Well, I knew I needed to continue on or I was not going to be around to love the people that love me, or I would even end up being a walking medical nightmare- I was borderline diabetic and had high blood pressure.

One day God put a man in my path and he introduced me to Beachbody and Shakeology. I thought it was just another shake and some crappy home DVD program (little did I know what I was talking about). I ordered Shakeology and a program called Les Mills Pump. My wife was not into fitness, but she supported me, and when I told her no more gym she was overjoyed. She decided to take the 90 day journey with me to support me and to have something to do as a couple.

We threw out our bad foods and went and bought good foods and replaced 1 meal a day with Shakeology. Little did we know how powerful Shakeology was. After completing the 90 days of Pump we ended up with a combined 29 inch and 54 lbs lost….AMAZING!!! Next up was P90X (to see what the hype was about). We completed it with some amazing results as well. I also completed two rounds of Body Beast, and am currently in my 4th week of Les Mills COMBAT. God had answered our prayers. I still get to work on my health and my wife and kids get to do it with me. Teaching our kids about good nutrition and exercise at their age is priceless… our 4 year old daughter is already a fitness nut and loves TurboFire. 

To make a long story short… I am down 200.2 lbs. and 14 inches from my waist alone, no longer pre-diabetic and my blood pressure is 115/55 and steady. To top it off, I feel amazing – I will be around a lot longer for my family.