In August 2012, Darrell began his fitness journey. Within a year, he dropped 130 pounds, went from a 48-inch waist to a 30.5-inch waist and from an XXL t-shirt to a medium. Although he didn't measure his body fat percentage before the weight loss, he estimates it was 40 percent or higher, and he got down to a little over 10 percent body fat.
"This may not be the answer people want to hear, but I want to be very clear when I say this: there is no magic in how I lost 130 pounds," he told POPSUGAR. "There was no special, trendy diet. There was no hot new workout. There was no special combination of supplements, no mind-blowingly intense workout, no fat-loss clinic and certainly no special shake or detox. No magic pill."
Instead, Darrell said he started "eating the right amount of the right things." For fitness, he worked out five days a week with a combination of HIIT, functional training, and running. "During this whole process, I found running, and frankly, that's the only [traditional] cardio I did," he said. "Not for weight loss or fat loss, but because I enjoyed it." Now, Darrell competes in marathons and ultramarathons.
He parlayed his weight-loss and fitness journey into a career; Darrell is currently a certified personal trainer and fitness director at Anytime Fitness in Attleboro, MA.
Image Source: Darrell McTague