By the age of 15, Nicolas Garratt already weighed 400 pounds (181 kilograms). He faced bullying at school and said he hated himself, feeling like a “freak, a monster.” It was 2020 and the teenager embraced the lockdowns that came with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was happy. I was relieved when COVID happened because I didn’t have to leave the house anymore,” he told . Garratt is now 19 years old.
“We had to quarantine ourselves and I was relieved not to have to see people. I only went out at night, when it was dark.”
Four years later, Garratt has lost 200 pounds (90 kilograms), works out every day and is looking to be a influencer of the exercises on Instagram, where she shows her body to thousands of followers.
“I want to help people achieve what I achieved,” he said.
But her weight loss success was also accompanied by many ups and downs and one hard setback.
Food as a distraction from pain
Garrat, who lives in South Wales, UK, was always an overweight child. His problems began at age 5, when he would eat large amounts of junk food and fast food, the youngster explained. And Every year, I continued to gain weight.
His classmates made fun of him so much that he refused to go to school and eventually dropped out.
Whenever he was stressed, he would distract himself with food. He estimates he ate between 4,000 and 6,000 calories a day, “anything I could get my hands on,” Garratt recalled.
Her diet included burgers, pork pies and ice cream. She made sandwiches with bacon, Nutella and melted cheese.
By the time Garratt hit his peak weight of 400 pounds in May 2020, he could barely move.
“My mother had a rule: I had to go for a walk once a day. She did everything she could. But Walking around the block made me cry; the back pain was terrible. My ankles were in a lot of pain. At that point I just wanted to stay in bed all day,” Garratt said.
He started drinking alcohol and playing video games constantly to distract himself from how much he hated his life.
Weight loss and a setback
When Garratt went to see a doctor about his anxiety, the doctor told him he was about to have a heart attack.
The teenager said he would lie awake at night, thinking about his future, worried that he would end up like the people he had seen on television, who were so fat they couldn’t get out of bed. He was determined to change.
By early 2021, Garratt had lost about 140 pounds (63 kilograms) through extreme fasting. The young man has warned people against that unhealthy approach. Because he lost weight without gaining muscle, the teenager still felt fat and hated himself.
“I was very unsatisfied. I thought, ‘I’ve done all this for nothing. What was the point? I lost all this weight and in the end I’m just this ugly person that I still don’t want to be,’” she recalled.
He drank again, ate more and climbed again. 50 pounds (22 kilograms).
In the end, success
Months later, the sleepless nights returned, filled with anxiety about the future and Garratt thought: “You can’t do this to yourself.”
He joined a gym in January 2023 and started lifting weights almost every day of the week. He started walking again and is currently doing an hour on an electric treadmill outdoors.
Garratt tracks his calories and aims to eat 1,400 a day. He focuses on eating healthy foods, such as chicken breast, vegetables and complex carbohydrates, which digest slowly and provide long-lasting energy for exercise.
The youngster, who is 5 feet 8 inches (1.62 meters) tall and now weighs 196 pounds (89 kilograms), said he has gained a good amount of muscle.
“I feel much safermuch more optimistic. I feel like a completely different person,” he said.
“Now, when I’m in trouble, I never feel like I need to distract myself with food or alcohol.”
The gym has made a huge difference to both his physical and mental health. He has made friends and enjoys being part of a community of like-minded people who keep him disciplined.
Garratt’s advice for those trying to lose weight is to start by counting calories. But his number one tip is for people to work on their mental strength and keep going despite failures along the way. He always tries to be optimistic about the future and believes that determination is more important than motivation.
He said that even if you don’t feel motivated to exercise, you can be determined to go to the gym. “You’re going to fail 100 times, but it wouldn’t be a real trajectory if you don’t get back up,” he added.
“Determination is what keeps you back up.”
