Andy Albertsons nickname at high school was Andyopolis because his classmates thought he was so overweight he could be his own city.
He used to arrive to class early and while his parents just thought he was a diligent student, they never knew the real reason why.
Andy, 22, would make sure he was the first one in the class so he could hide up the back and nobody would have to see him walk through the door.
Being overweight, thats the worst thing possible, to have everyones attention on you, he said in a Facebook video about his weight loss journey.
The Texan man weighed almost 330 pounds and was self conscious of his body. But in less than a year he lost more kilograms than what he weighs now.
He shed a massive 169 pounds and is now down to about 145 pounds.
He claims his weight loss wasnt a miracle, but rather the result of discipline.
In the video posted on his Facebook page, The Andy Journey, he said to succeed, losing weight had to be something you really wanted. He didnt struggle with his weight loss a lot, but he did have moments where he broke.
Andy started putting on weight in primary school but he was playing soccer and baseball and it didnt seem like it was an issue.
His mother Mary Albertson began to notice but she just thought he was a little heavy-set.
He eventually dropped out of soccer, after two seasons of little league baseball he quit baseball and I think he began to feel like he couldnt keep up and compete with the other kids but we tried to encourage him to play but he just quit. I guess thats when I began to realize his weight was affecting his lifestyle, Mary Albertson said.
She had fears her son would become a 35-year-old man sitting in the basement of his parents house playing video games and eating.
She choked back tears when she recalled one night when she was helping Andy with his homework and he said if he had one wish, he would want to be skinny.
As a parent you see your child struggling with being overweight but the thing that seems to make them the happiest is food, so thats what you give them, Mary Albertson said.
Andy said in primary school he weighed about 253 pounds but put on another 66 pounds when he went to college.
I was done being fat and done seeing the number on that scale go up and up, he said.
In January 2015, he began working out and in four months he lost the 66 pounds he put on at college.
He was running on the treadmill every day but he started to plateau and his mom thought thats when he would quit. But when she heard somebody talking about personal trainer Jerry Hughes, she enlisted his help.
Its a tricky thing when you meet with someone and theyre talking about losing a lot of weight. Truly obese people can have a lot of excuses and I dont mean that in a bad way, its their coping mechanism, Jerry Hughes said in the video.
While Andys mom claimed the whole family was heavy-set, Hughes said we were all about the same size when we were born.
Hughes said it wasnt just about teaching Andy how to lift weights at the gym.
They would meet up outside of the gym and talk on the phone when Andy was struggling mentally and needed help to overcome thoughts.
Thats where his battle was won, Hughes said.
If you do not control your mind you will never concur your body.
The trainer said obesity was like any problem, and if youre child was blind or couldnt speak, you would do everything you could to help them, and obesity should be treated in the same way.
Andy said as soon as school starts again, he is going to show up 10 minutes late.
Everyones going to look at me and Im not going to have a care in the world if I have to sit at the front of the class, he said.
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Student gets revenge on bullies with dramatic weight loss - New York Post
