Kenny Saylors always had a passion for food. But after a harrowing and sudden breakup with his girlfriend in 2006, he spiraled into a negative eating trend that quickly became dangerous.
In 2009, with the help of experts and doctors, he embarked on a fasting program for 55 days, one that saw him only drink water and not eat anything at all. Needless to say, it was a risky journey – several doctors had told him not to do it because of the associated dangers.
However, Kenny pulled through. Since then, his life has been a rollercoaster ride. At his heaviest, Kenny said he weighed more than 500 pounds, but fortunately managed to turn everything around before it was too late.
Nothing can keep Kenny down – today, he’s doing better than ever. So, let’s take a look at his incredible journey.
A healthy diet can be a difficult thing to maintain. If you have a family, a partner, or time-consuming interests, it can sometimes be hard to cook healthy food. Not to mention the fact that eating healthy can also be pretty expensive.
Fast food is simple by comparison and can even be good now and then. In the long run, though, it’s terrible for your health if abused. That’s why doctors are ever imploring patients to work out. In short, fitness is good for your mind, body, and soul!
These days, it seems there is no shortage of people aiming to teach others how to live a healthy life through exercising, eating healthy, and working on our inner peace to feel great.
Such individuals, often very physically fit themselves, are rightly praised for being inspirational. That said, I think the people who are perhaps struggling with their weight – and then take matters into their own hands to start doing something about it – are equally deserved of admiration.
You’ll know the sort of people I’m referring to. Some of them have appeared on popular weight-loss shows such as My 600-lb-Life. Others choose to change their lives with more subtlety, leaning on the support of friends and family. One of those people is Kenny Saylors, who managed to make a giant U-turn in his life.
In 2013, the Texas native decided to make a documentary about his latest weight loss project. It included drinking only water for 55 days – said to be the world record – and not eating anything at all. Kenny, in essence, would be a human guinea pig to see what would happen.
Of course, he needed doctor supervision to complete the project, which marked the start of an impressive transformation.
Today, Saylors is still on his weight loss journey, and doing his best to inspire others to join him.
As a teenager, Saylors was like any other young person.
He went to high school, was a part of the school’s marching band, and loved playing sports. In his senior year, he weighed a healthy 160 pounds.
“When he was growing up, he was active from the time he started walking. He liked sports, played football, and never met a stranger. He was friendly with everybody,” Kenny’s mother recalled in his documentary Facing The Fat.
“When he went to high school, he was very thin, almost frail looking. I never thought he would gain this much weight, so when he gained weight he started this coughing.”
Later, doctors attributed Kenny’s coughing to his weight gain and the extensive amount of fat he had in his body. So what happened?
Well, in 2006, Saylors’ weight loss began to spin out of control. By that point, he was already tipping the scales towards the wrong end, and when his girlfriend broke up with him, things took an ugly turn. Reportedly, he had been under the impression that their relationship was fine. Then one day, out of the blue, his girlfriend called him and told him it was over.
Crushed by heartbreak, Kenny started eating as a way to deal with his emotions.
“I was devastated. I wasn’t just broken-hearted, I was broken. And she never gave me a reason, just ended it. I didn’t know, emotionally, what to do with that. There was no closer. From that point, over the next year, I gained over 80 pounds. I ate, and I ate because food doesn’t reject you,” Saylors explained.
“When people see me they just see a fat guy. But what they don’t see is that I’m a person that struggles with every day. It’s something I’m trying to overcome. I know that there are much bigger people than me around, so I can’t even imagine what they are going through.”
Years went by, and Kenny’s weight gain continued. Between 2007 and 2008, his weight jumped from 235 pounds to a whopping 315 pounds. Finally, three years after the breakup with his ex – in 2009 – he decided that enough was enough, and went into a water fasting program.