A formerly-obese man whose weight crisis was aired on global TV has amazingly turned his life around. After having surgery, transforming his diet, changing his lifestyle, and—not least of all—adopting a new mental outlook, he’s lost nearly 600 pounds and today says with confidence: “I’m happy with who I am.”
Now 38, Casey King from Georgia became enormously obese during high school, leaving him feeling socially ostracized. And peaking at 823 pounds, food became his refuge. “I was kind of always an outcast kid,” King told The Epoch Times. “I was just always weird or different, high energy, loud, and I didn’t have a ton of friends so I just ate a lot.” Then, after high school, he worked at several restaurants and leaned into eating to cope with feelings of loneliness. The more he ate, the bigger he got.
After a debilitating ankle injury left him immobilized for a couple of months, King’s food habit grew out of control.
“I just ate all day, every day,” he said. “I played video games; I didn’t really go outside much; I wasn’t very active at all.” King spent the whole day indoors. He didn’t visit his friends and only saw his family on “super-special occasions,” he said, adding that he felt “trapped inside.”
Having lived with his father for almost 14 years, King recalls his go-to takeout meal: 12 to 15 chicken tenders tossed in Buffalo and barbecue sauce, a large order of tater tots, and a large sweet tea. Often, he and his dad would polish off two large pizzas themselves. “We didn’t count calories or anything,” King said. “We just ate until we were full.”
Eventually, his parents confronted him about his ballooning weight, insisting that only he could change himself. His mom in particular was always his champion, but the message didn’t sink in—nor did he see any changes—until after he became an uncle.
“Ten years ago, I was so big that I couldn’t really get off the ground,” he said. “We went to the hospital the next day, and they were like, ‘If you’re barely able to breathe, you’re not getting the oxygen into your blood you need. That’s why you’re always tired and not wanting to move. You’re gonna die.’
Sick of Always Being Tired
So, King took his health into his own hands. In 2019, then weighing 711 pounds, he participated in season two of TLC’s reality show “Family By The Ton.” Before being offered weight-loss surgery, he was asked to lose some of the weight himself to demonstrate his commitment, and King dropped to 630 pounds in a healthy way before having vertical sleeve gastrectomy surgery. Afterward, he swapped out his massive meals for more frequent, smaller dishes consisting of salads, grilled vegetables, and grilled meat. As his stomach adjusted to the new regime, so did he.
“I lost weight, I got more active, and then as I got more active I started to mess around with my diet more,” he said.
King started getting compliments on his looks. Some even said he “was cute,” which felt “great,” and as the compliments kept pouring in he “felt better and better,” he said, adding that the more people championed his cause, the more he “just never wanted to stop.”
Through hiking, walking, swimming, and eating healthily, King entered an ascending, positive spiral. Since having surgery, he has lost 388 pounds, now weighs 242 pounds, and is not far from his ultimate goal of 215 pounds, though he admits some days are tough. “I still get jealous of people that are able to eat normal food. I still want things and crave things,” he said. “At certain times, the weight loss really stalled out. ... I would be really hard on myself physically, on how I looked, [but] I knew I didn’t want to go back to being enormous.”
King had never dated in his former years. Love was simply a “non-factor” as he felt unattractive and absolutely like “a human waste of flesh,” he said. “None of these things were options before I went from literally just existing in this world to now living my life.”
Today, King is researching skin removal surgery as his copious derma no longer suits his narrower body size. It’s “complicated and extremely expensive,” he said, though his goal of becoming comfortable taking his shirt off in front of others to go swimming keeps him motivated.
But with his parents, siblings, and friends all in his corner, King’s support system emboldens him to feel like a superhero. “I’m pretty humble normally,” he said. “But when I’m starting to get compliments, I completely throw my humbleness away! I just started leaning into the fact that I am a literal inspiration to the world, and I am an amazing human being.”
He has one last tip.
“Get a dog! Take your dog for a walk,” he said, adding that “it’s not always a fast journey, but it is possible and you can do it.”
