3
300
& POUNDS
Profile
Brett James, longtime
member of Anytime
Fitness in Richmond,
bench presses after
stretching on Jan. 2.
How Brett James
changed his life around
L
Story and photos by Sara Kuhl
osing weight, eating healthier and chang-
ing lifestyles is often something most people
struggle with, despite commonly being New
Year’s resolutions for many Americans.
But Brett James promises that anyone can do it,
just like he did.
“It just kind of came down to the point where I
had to either commit to being a land whale for every
convention I go to, which is a fun costume, or actually
kind of submit to health,” he said. “So I kind of went
that route. Three years later, 300 pounds down.”
James said his personal motivation came from being
in a bad place mentally as he was contemplating sui-
cide because he weighed around 520 pounds.
“… Because honest to God, being that heavy feels
like a prison sentence,” he said. “It feels like at the
end of the day, nothing you do will ever matter be-
cause you walk a few feet, and you get … exhausted,
and that’s pretty much how it all started.”
James signed up for Anytime Fitness in Richmond
after noticing a promotional deal where the first
month was only $1 as he was driving to McDonald’s
for a meal for his then-fiancee. He decided to give it a
shot, walked in and signed up.
Now, he said, he feels like a newer version of him-
self.
“I’m much less grumpy. I’m more like a mildly dis-
pleased cat instead of Grumpy Cat now,” he joked.
His Journey
In the beginning, James said, he would get on the
treadmill for about an hour three to five times a week.
Within the first month, his sister, who had been do-
ing fitness for years and is a personal trainer, wrote
a program for him to follow, and after a while, he
started doing “FASTer Way to Fat Loss,” a weight-loss
program written by Amanda Tress that “promotes
intermittent fasting as well as carb cycling with daily
workout routines…,” James said.
He continued that program for two years and said it
generated the most results.
F E B R UA RY- M A R C H 2 02 0
Madison Magazine
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