Love Yourself to Lose the Weight

Fall 2014

In 2013 Durham was turning 50 and concerned that his best years were in the past. The high school drama teacher wanted to make a drastic lifestyle change, and the TV series “Extreme Weight Loss” gave him the tools, motivation and support to make it happen. A little more than a year later, the former UCF Homecoming King has shed 188 pounds along with a ton of regret.

“Diets are science to me. You put in less and move more, and your body is going to drop weight. That is not where transformation happens. When I think of the past year, I never think of the weight loss as the transformation. The real change was in my head — putting myself first and truly loving myself. It was revolutionary.”

“To love yourself, you keep your promises to yourself. The word ‘no’ became part of a new arsenal that I had not used before. Most people who are morbidly obese, there is something triggering it. Food becomes something that it shouldn’t be. You run to it when things get difficult. What I needed to do, was to get rid of the ‘difficult.’ ”

“For the first time in my life, I did. Instead of saying, ‘Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow,’ I did it. And I learned that I was a bit of a warrior through the process. I found out that I’m as strong as an ox, and that I could do things like run a 5K even though I’d never walked a mile. When you do something like that, then you know you can do anything.”

Photo credit: ABC/RICK ROWELL