Maria Masters

When my coach and I first started training, I didnt understand the concept of commitment and consistency. He would wake me up on Saturday morning at 9 AM-the one day you get to sleep in. Id be in the bed rolling over, like, coughing, and saying I dont feel good, but my mom would make me go, he says. I didnt like any of it at all. As a kid, you dont understand what your parents are trying to do. You think they hate you and theyre mad at you.

Despite the rough start, Larry lost about 20 pounds. On a car ride with Robert, he told me that we were stopping by the high school, and I remember thinking, for what? Larry recalls. It was summer, and there was no school. And then he was like, Youre going to play football. And I was like, No way. My mom and dad hired him to help me lose weight and that was it. Football wasnt part of the deal. We got into an argument about it in the car.

Undeterred, Robert requested a permission slip from the high schools front office, which Larrys mom promptly signed. The following Saturday, Larry was on the football field. I tapped out after four sprints, he says. The next day, the coach came to see if I was still there, and I remember thinking yeah, Im still here, but only because I have to be.

He finished his sophomore year on the JV squad as the only noseguard to start from a two-point stance. (I couldnt bend over-my upper body couldnt support my weight.) But his coaches were impressed. At the end-of-the-year banquet, they awarded him the most improved baby player on the team. I was shocked, Larry says. That was the first time in my life where I felt like I earned something that I really worked for."

I asked my coach right after the season exactly what I would have to do to get recruited by colleges. He told me I had to get faster, stronger, and perfect my technique, he says. So every day after practice, Larry went to the YMCA. At first, he ran a half mile on the treadmill, then biked 5 miles; eventually, he was running two miles without stopping and biking 15. I cut soda and juice, which really helped a lot. My body composition started changing, and I went into my junior year at 247 pounds, he says. I dropped so much weight that my coach kind of got mad at me. He was like, Are you trying to play DB now? So I had to put some weight back on.

Larry graduated high school with five offers from colleges, but his pick-the University of North Carolina at Charlotte-surprised everyone. It was a start-up program, and [the team] was redshirted for the first year, he says. There was a lot of negativity from some people, who told me that Id never get drafted by the NFL. But for me, ignorance was bliss. Football was still fresh to me, so I just wanted to learn more and get better. I told myself that if the NFL wanted me to play for them, they would find me. During the next three years of college, Larry started in all 46 games.

After graduating from Charlotte-and setting school records for sacks, losses, and tackles-the NFL took notice: Larry was chosen in the third round in the 2017 NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns. At 62, hes now down to 12 percent body fat, even at 300 pounds.

Today, he eats clean, even shunning the strawberry milkshake pop-tarts he loved as a kid. When he recently got a box of them, I could only eat one because I was having flashbacks and I didnt want to relapse, he says. Instead, he has his meals pre-prepared and sent from California, where he trained in the off-season. I found a really good chef that takes care of me, he freezes my meals and overnights them, and its really clean food like vegetables, whole grains, and chicken or ground turkey, he says.

He focuses his attention on healthy meals and he controls his snacks. I used to be a really big snacker, like I could finish a whole bag of trail mix in one sitting, he says. But I learned that if I wanted to have abs and look a certain way and feel better, its not about having anything you want; its understanding that you need to have discipline to stay on track.

I was never the star athlete, he says. But I was able to do these things by working really hard and training and doing the right things. My story is that if you want it, you can do it, too.

Larry Ogunjobi, 23, was always big for his age, but when his weight climbed to 350 pounds during his freshman year of high school, his parents knew they had to step in. First, they hid Larrys Xbox from him-then, they enlisted the help of Robert Mitchell, a weight loss coach.

This NFL Lineman Used to Hate Exercise

I was commuting 70 miles a day and spending 9 hours behind a desk, eating snacks from the vending machine, he says-and packed on about 100 pounds in a year and a half.

He didnt realize just how large he had gotten until the fall of 2017, when a friend tagged him in an Instagram photo.

I was absolutely ashamed, he says. Hed hit 305 pounds. And it wasnt just his weight that was suffering-he had also recently ended a relationship and his finances were a mess. I looked around and realized that had completely given up on myself, he says.

In January of 2018. with the miles from his commute adding up, Legarreta began searching for a new car that he could drive to the train station. Thats when a work buddy suggested he buy a bike instead. Legarreta wavered at first, but eventually gave in and decided to ride the train partway and bike the rest. Along the way, he developed a love of mountain biking.

<h1> What he discovered on the road: </h1>

Invest in your goals.

Legarreta first bought a cheap bike that couldnt support his weight. When that bike broke, Legarreta bought another cheap one, which also broke. Finally, his friend convinced him to invest in a more expensive, durable model-and after doing that, Legarreta was hooked.

Find some friendly competition.

Soon after he started cycling, Legarreta signed up for a weight loss competition at work-and came in second place. In the past, hed tried a number of different diets. I tried to go from zero to keto in a week. Every time I tried something, it didnt work out, he says. This time, I began taking a more active role in taking care of myself. I started to look at food kind of like money. It became like budgeting. If football was at night, I knew I had to eat lighter that day since I was going to eat like crap that night. If I knew I had a riding trip coming up, that week was more light, and I tried to drink more water, since riding all weekend would definitely dehydrate me. Once he saw that the weight was coming off, he had even more motivation to keep at it. Today, he weighs 205 pounds.

Recruit some workout buddies.

On weekends, Legarreta goes out with a local riding group. The guys at work were noticing that I was riding to work every day. They kept telling me I should come out with them but I was embarrassed and didnt think I could keep up, he says. It wasnt until a friend convinced him to go on a ride (no judgement, just ride!) that he took the plunge. I just about died and had to walk up most of the hills, he says, but thanks him now After that, I was hooked. He looked up cycling Facebook pages and reddit groups. When I start a hobby, I like to talk to like-minded people, so I always look for forums or groups to join. That also keeps him training hard. I want to be able to keep up with my friends on gnarly climbs and bomb down mountains with speed and agility.

This Guy Changed His Commute and Dropped 100 Lbs.

After starting a new job at a car dealership, Chris Legarreta went from being an active store manager to a deskbound consultant.

This Guy Started Commuting on a Bike—and Had a 100-Pound Weight Loss Transformation

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Maria Masters

Articles written by the author

This NFL Lineman Used to Hate Exercise

This Guy Started Commuting on a Bike—and Had a 100-Pound Weight Loss Transformation