When he couldn’t recognize himself in photos anymore, Andrew Kam decided it was time to take control of his health for good. At his heaviest, he weighed 347 pounds.
Kam had always been bigger than most of the kids his age, and was in elementary school when he first became aware of it.
His mother was shopping for a t-shirt he needed for orchestra, but the children’s XL size didn’t fit him anymore, so he had to wear an adult’s large instead.
"I think that was the first time I actually started to be self-conscious about like my size," he told MensHealth.com
Kam was in his freshman year of college when he lost his mother to cancer -- both his physical and mental health took a turn for the worst.
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“It was an awful time in my life," he said. "That made me super depressed.”
He went to therapy to work through his grief but also found comfort in food.
By the time he graduated, Kam was overweight, but it never really got in his way. He was too busy enjoying life post-graduation to notice just how much weight he’d gained.
“Now that I had money, I could eat some nicer things, and I started drinking because I was stressed out from work,” he said. “ I just ballooned up to like the mid-300s,” he continued. “I didn't really realize, because I wasn't weighing myself. I was enjoying life.”
He didn't recognize himself
He was confronted with reality one day when he stumbled upon pictures of him out with friends and didn’t recognize himself.
It was a rude awakening, but a wake-up call Kam desperately needed. He immediately began eating a restrictive diet and monitoring his calorie intake, and sure enough, he quickly started losing weight.
Proud with what he was able to achieve, Kam wanted to celebrate his success, and pretty soon he gained back all the weight he’d lost.
"I said, 'Hey, I'm going to reward myself one day a week.' And then it just ballooned up again," he said. "I think that was part of the whole learning process for me. This isn't some crash course where you're good after three or four months. It's like a lifelong change."
A year ago, Kam mustered up the courage to give it another shot, but in order to do that he had to change his outlook on what a healthy transformation really means.
Ready for hard work and dedication
He’s learned that sustainable weight loss takes a lot of hard work and dedication.
This time he was committed to creating a new reality for himself. Kam started working out, lifting weights and going to spin classes, but the key ingredient to his success is the ketogenic diet.
By shifting his mindset and building new habits, Kam has lost 90 pounds, and the biggest reward for him has been not what's lost but what he’s gained through the experience:
"My confidence, I can feel it in my core. It’s just a matter of persisting," he said. "2018 is my year."
