He “woke up” after his weight reached 502 pounds. His weight-loss journey focused on diet changes and a unique exercise program that helped him burn calories all day.
Weight loss wasn’t on Johnell Winston’s mind for years, even though he saw his body getting bigger. He’d been athletic all his life, “didn’t feel too terrible” and didn’t think he looked as heavy as he was.
But then Winston stepped on a scale for the first time in a while and discovered he weighed 502 pounds. A physician told him, “If I can get you to 68, I’ll be the world’s greatest doctor,” he recalls.
“I like to tell people I just woke up. I feel like all people in life, at some point in time, they wake up and they understand their calling,” Winston, 32, who lives in Phoenix, Arizona, tells TODAY.com.
“I was just like, I want to be here for my daughter. I want to be the very best person to lead her into whatever things she has to face in life. I want to be there for her. And I knew if I kept going the path I was going, I wasn’t going to be able to do that.
”Since then, Winston has lost 222 pounds, gained muscle and sculpted his body, a change he’s been chronicling on The transformation earned him the No. 1 place in the 2026 “Submit Your Fit” contest for the most inspirational fitness journeys among members of EoS Fitness, a chain of gyms. Winston says he was always a big kid but became active in high school sports, including football, wrestling and track and field, which kept his weight in check.
In college, he continued to play football, so practice time, training and meals were very structured, helping him stay healthy. He moved in with a group of male friends and adopted their eating habits, including lots of fast food and DoorDash orders for lunch and dinner. Breakfast was often a banana nut muffin washed down with chocolate milk.
“Anytime I would go to the gas station to get gas, I would always leave with like two honey buns, the sweets and the cakes, donuts. ” He estimates he was eating 5,000 calories a day or more, calling it “crazy.
” At the same time, Winston no longer had free access to a nearby gym — a perk he was used to in college — and worked at a desk job that required him to sit for eight hours a day, so he became sedentary. Winston says he mostly felt fine as his body kept getting bigger, but he still remembers how breathless he got while running to catch a train one day when his car was at the shop.
“My chest was killing me. It was like my heart was pounding out of my body, my knee was sore,” he recalls. In 2024, Winston got on a scale and discovered he weighed 502 pounds, describing it as “a scary, kind of surreal moment. ”Winston began regularly going to the gym in January 2025, riding on a stationary bike for 30 minutes, and hitting the heavy bag for 30 minutes.became a key part of his weight-loss strategy as well.
He started tracking his activity on his Apple Watch and realized he could burn calories by“Once I realized I can burn 2,000 calories at my desk job, I knew there’s a cheat code, that’s how you can maximize your time,” Winston says. Courtesy Johnell Winston At the same time, Winston reduced his food intake to 1,500 calories, focusing on protein and avoiding carbs and sugar. He consumed lots of chicken, turkey, salmon, tuna and steak, plus cauliflower rice and vegetables.
Winston used a compounded GLP-1 weight-loss drug for the first few months of his weight-loss journey, but then stopped due to the cost and because he didn’t feel he needed it.
“I realized you still have to do the work yourself. You still have to go to the gym and eat right yourself,” Winston says. He now weighs 280 pounds and has raised his daily food intake to 2,400 calories as he works to build muscle. He still exercises every day.
Winston’s one simple habit to combat cravings is to frequently say “no” and come prepared. To avoid overeating foods with carbs and sugar at family events, he’d show up with a bag of beef jerky and rice cakes, or he’d eat tuna and egg whites ahead of time to fill up with protein.
“You’ve got to tell yourself no first, and you’ve got to be able to tell your friends and your family no,” Winston advises. A. Pawlowski is a TODAY health reporter focusing on health news and features. Previously, she was a writer, producer and editor at CNN.karandaev / Getty ImagesBozena Milosevic / Getty Images
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