Family tragedy leads to lifestyle change for Chillicothe man

The 23-year-old Chillicothe man has lost about 135 pounds and kept it off for a year and a half.

It was April 5, 2008, when Travis lost his brother Matt to a drunk driver.

"That’s when it got real," said Travis. "My brother was only 23. It was him and another friend Adonnis White together. They were both killed by a drunk driver. After the shock wore off I realized I couldn’t play around with my health anymore."

Travis weighed about 372 at the time. He dropped down to 235-240 depending on the day.

Travis always wanted to get in good shape, but, like most of us, he couldn’t get it together.

"I tried to diet many times," he said. "It was terrible, I hated it. I would find some excuse to quit. I’d do it another day and that day never came."

When Travis got serious, he also got wise. He stopped looking at it as a need to diet and began seeing it as a lifestyle change.

"I just started eating healthier," he said. "I was eating too much junk. I cut down on the carbs. Now I keep my carbs around 20-30 grams per day, some times 100 grams on weight training day. I try to throw different things at my body to keep it from adapting, this way it makes it harder for my body to ‘plateau’. I started working out five to six times a week. It wasn’t necessarily a diet; I just changed my way of eating."

Travis said that a diet is a way of eating for a particular amount of time. People go on a diet for a couple of weeks, quit, and gain the weight back. A lifestyle change, on the other hand, is a change for good.

Travis still has cravings, but not for sweets…."I crave things like peanuts. Weird things. Things that are low in carbs, but not things like doughnuts and cake."

He has learned to give his body a break from the routine now and then.

"At Christmas, I could eat whatever I wanted for three days. Then when the new year started I got right back to work. Other than that, there’s been no deviations from the plan. Keep the carbs low and work out hard."

Travis said he is not a body builder, but he is an athlete. It’s a little harder for him to work out as intensely during the winter. But he still makes it to the gym five to six days per week; he will never quit.

"Right now, I’m maintaining," he said. "I think my body needed a little rest time, or it wouldn’t want to progress."

"He plans to "kick it back up" now that summer is only about 12 weeks away.

"Next week I’ll get intense with my work out and meticulous with the calories. I always count calories, weigh and measure my food, but next week is when it will be cut down to 12xbodyweight, 1 gram of protein per pound, etc."

Travis is employed at Lowes in Chillicothe. He said his mother, Rita Darr, and his daughter, Mattisyn, 9 months, are two of the biggest motivators in his life.

"My mom has been very supportive of me, and I am very appreciative of that, she’s the best mom God made," Travis said. "Mattisyn is the best thing in the world. I named her Mattisyn for my brother Matt. She makes life so much better and more enjoyable."

Travis said he hopes to get into even better shape, but right now the focus is on keeping all of the weight off, which he has, which is where most people mess up. Losing the fat is just half the battle, keeping it off for good is the other half.

"I’m not where I want to be," he said. "But I’m definitely not where I used to be.

Travis was featued in a June, 2010, edition of Men’s Muscle and Fitness.

Travis tells the story in his own words

I think that every man wants to be in great shape. The low body fat percentage, be able to run miles without getting winded, nice arms, and of course a nice six pack. I am no different. I’ve always been big. But around the age of 19-20 I got FAT. It was bad. I would start a "diet" of some kind, there were several. And just as fast as I started, it was some kind of excuse to get off of it, and put it off to another day. I wasn’t quite up to my all time high yet. I was still somewhat athletic. I could still play basketball, which is my first love. I wanted to be in better shape so bad, but I just couldn’t put it into practice. Until, the sad, sad day of April 5, 2008, came. My brother Matt and one of my closest childhood friends were killed by a drunk driver in St. Joseph.

It was hard for me. I didn’t know what to do. My life was just jacked up. I tried to make sense of it all, but there is no making sense of such a tragic thing. After awhile, I decided that life was too short not to live it how you want.

And while I can’t change some of the circumstances in my life, I could do something about my body. So I sat down, and made a plan with realistic goals, and on Dec. 27, 2008, I put that plan into motion.

I weighed on that day at 372 pounds. Right now, I weigh around 235-240. I have maintained that for closer to a year and a half. I workout with weights Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I do cardio Monday through Saturday.