Man Overcomes Lifelong Struggle With Weight By Relocating To Isolated Village, Disconnecting from Family And Friends

Ever felt like making a drastic change in life? Well, you can’t really get more drastic than packing up, leaving your family, quitting your job, and moving to a remote location to meet a weight goal. 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you might have noticed the abundance of good-looking, lean people splashed all over billboards, in movies, and on TV. These people weren’t born this way—it took them years of dedication and discipline to achieve their shapes. 

For those without Hollywood-grade personal trainers, home gyms, or stay-at-home chefs, getting into shape—or at least the shape we’d like —can be seriously tough. With work, the temptations of modern convenience, and coping issues, some people find it near impossible to slim down.

Bryan wanted to share his journey to take stock of his achievements. But he also posted his story to show others that getting into shape takes a lot of effort and that failure is almost inevitable. But his most important goal might have been encouraging others not to give up on their path.

Bryan was born and grew up in Ireland. He was only slightly overweight as a child, but his time at boarding school helped him to slim down and countered his compulsive eating habits. He had lots of time to play sports and plenty of friends to play them with him.

It’s the modern trap: the demands of life get too much, and one of life’s greatest pleasures—food and drink—is only a phone call or an app swipe away. According to Bryan, his weakness was drinking and pizza in combination with little to no exercise. 

To make matters worse, after he turned 19, the option of getting active by playing sports was taken out of his hands. He received a knee injury that he couldn’t recover from, at least not quickly enough for his new habit of binging to completely take over.

Does this story sound familiar? Bryan realized that he needed to slim down, but with every promise came disappointment. Each vow to take up a healthier diet failed—and with it, feelings of guilt, shame, anger, and sadness. The only thing that made it better? Food and drink.

After earning his master’s degree, Bryan began his mission: to beat his depression and negative self-image. He tried everything—including having a medical balloon inserted into his stomach to prevent over-eating, hiring personal trainers, attending weight management sessions, and following special diets.

It’s a weight-loss story as old as time. The cost of such stringent constraints was high (and so was the temptation to fall back into old patterns). One good night with friends or family at a restaurant or bar sent Bryan back into craving his old comforts—comforts that were all too readily available.

There were almost two Bryans—one that had an overpowering will towards eating and drinking and another that yearned for activity, challenge, and a healthy lifestyle. Each day he stepped into one of these personalities, each desperate to under the other’s work.

It may seem clear to anyone looking from the outside that Bryan’s problems were both internal and external. He had too much easy access to the object of his cravings—junk food. After the lockdown in 2020, he moved to Mallorca to try and get himself a clean break.

Bryan took stock of the last nine months. His stress levels were lower, thanks to the new environment. The biggest problem was that he was still within arm’s reach of temptation. He still had his phone, and he was still able to order unhealthy food from an online delivery app.

Determined that his prior failure would be the last, Bryan formed an extreme plan in his mind. Although he was away from his friends and family at home in Ireland, he was still not far enough away from the ability to order take-out food that held him in such a state of coming and going.

Reasoning that his social life revolved around restaurants and bars, Bryan played a dangerous move and cut it all off to move to a small fishing village named Cala Figuera. In the village, the only place to get food in the winter was a single shop!

By March, Bryan had lost an enormous amount of weight—over 50 lbs—in a very short amount of time. He was working full time at his new exercise regime, even completing a sprint triathlon. His faithful companion was there to see him through it, but drastically, he was his only company.

Bryan took three months away from his loved ones while he worked on himself this way. He began the 90 days by walking his dog. Then, he started lifting weights while watching what he was eating. That soon became running and stretching. Three days of swimming a week soon followed.

While his family supported his three-month plan, they became concerned once he told them that he would not be giving up once the 90 days were up. He planned to continue and even take a more rigorous approach to his workouts. To this, he received some pushback.

Whether the weather was good or bad, whether he was tired or not, whether he had sustained any injuries, or if he was good to go, Bryan trained. He worked around his injuries, ignored his tiredness, and disregarded the weather. There was no one around about it, anyway.

Having tried many other approaches over the last decade, Bryan had some idea of what he was doing, at least nutritionally. He aimed to keep below 2,200 calories a day, using an app called MyFitnessPal to do it. Additionally, Bryan went on an intermittent fasting diet.

While he worked away, he had this image on his phone at all times as a background to remind him of why he was working so hard every day. Bryan looked happy in the picture, but it wasn’t the body he wanted. 

Three months after his original deadline, this is what Bryan looked like in the mirror. After all the rigorous training and dieting, he had finally met his goal. Rather than celebrate over drinks, Bryan ran half a marathon around his home in victory.

One-third lighter than he had been before the start of the year, Bryan snapped up a ticket back home to Ireland. He hadn’t spoken to his loved ones in around six months. He had told them he would be gone for three, but he always knew it would take much longer.

His family hadn’t seen him in more than half a year. This is what happened when Bryan knocked on his sister’s door. The look on her face is priceless. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. He had completely changed his appearance.

After another six months of meeting up with old friends, family, and acquaintances, Bryan thought it would be appropriate to recreate some of the photos that motivated him to transform himself in the first place with the people in his life that he cared about.

During his first few months out in the fishing village, his sister asked him, “Are you happy?” Bryan thought on it for a moment and replied, “Yes.” He recalled that he was lying at the time. He was quite unhappy and tired. He craved all of his old void fillers. 

After so long, his achievements filled the void. He was pushing himself, but his newfound energy and vitality filled the gap where junk food and sugary drinks would do it before. He felt free and confident, as though he were doing the right thing. Eventually, he didn’t even want to quit.

He also enjoyed the small benefits of losing so much weight. He described the moment he realized he could sit in an airplane seat without discomfort as “like swimming.” He said, “I used to be locked in—I’d leave with a seatbelt mark.”

Going from 338 pounds and losing 137 in just over half a year is inspirational, but it was also very risky. Bryan had found the willpower and environment that worked for him, but he was playing a dangerous game by overtraining. Nonetheless, he came out of it on top.

For Bryan, changing his environment was the key to success. He was living in what some experts consider to be an “obesogenic environment.” In other words, his world was full of easy temptations and constant reminders of void-filling, unhealthy foods. It was his barrier to good health.

Much of Bryan’s success can be attributed to building mental resilience against his cravings and building the discipline needed to endure five hours of exercise daily. Bryan also checked in with health experts. The recommended weight loss rate is generally 1% of body fat every two weeks. 

Bryan won fame for his efforts, but more importantly, he is still happy and fulfilled. He posted a viral Tik Tok video about his story. He now works to inspire others to start their long, hard journeys and to help others not give up on their dreams.