Kenny Saylors has always been very interested in food. But after he broke up with his girlfriend in a scary and sudden way in 2006, he fell into a bad pattern of eating that quickly became dangerous.
In 2009, he went on a 55-day fasting program with the help of experts and doctors. During this time, he only drank water and didn’t eat anything. Obviously, it was a dangerous trip. In fact, several doctors had told him not to go because of the risks.
But Kenny was able to get better. Since then, he’s been through a lot of ups and downs. Kenny said that at his heaviest, he weighed more than 500 pounds, but he was able to lose weight before it was too late.
Kenny is doing better than ever and nothing can stop him. So, let’s look back at his amazing journey.
It can be hard to keep up with a healthy diet. When you have a family, a partner, or other things that take up a lot of your time, it can be hard to cook healthy food. Not to mention that healthy food can be pretty expensive as well.
Fast food, on the other hand, is easy and can even be good sometimes. Abusing it, though, is bad for your health in the long run. That’s why doctors always tell their patients to exercise. Fitness is good for your body, mind, and spirit.
Kenny Saylors and his journey to lose weight
People seem to be everywhere these days trying to teach others how to live a healthy life by working out, eating well, and working on their inner peace to feel great.
People like this, who are often very fit themselves, are praised for being inspiring. Still, I think people who may be struggling with their weight but decide to do something about it on their own are just as admirable.
You will know what kind of people I mean. Some of them have been on popular shows about losing weight, like “My 600-lb. Life.” Some people choose to make changes in their lives slowly, with the help of friends and family. One of these people is Kenny Saylors, who turned his life around 180 degrees.
In 2013, the man from Texas decided to make a film about his latest attempt to lose weight. It included not eating anything and only drinking water for 55 days, which is said to be a world record. Kenny would be used as a test subject to see what would happen.
Obviously, he needed help from a doctor to finish the project, which was the beginning of a big change.
Doctors later found that Kenny’s coughing was caused by his weight gain and the large amount of fat in his body. So what took place?
Well, Saylors’ weight loss started to get out of hand in 2006. At that point, the scales were already leaning in the wrong direction, and when his girlfriend broke up with him, things got worse. He was reportedly under the impression that everything was fine between them. Then, out of blue, his girlfriend contacted him and shared the news.
“I was in shock. I was broken, not just broken-hearted. She never told me why she broke up with me, she just did. I didn’t know what to do with that emotionally. There was nothing nearer. I put on more than 80 pounds over the next year after that. I ate, and I ate because food doesn’t reject you,” Saylors said.
“When people look at me, all they see is a big person. But what they don’t see is that I have problems every single day. I’m working on getting over it. I know there are people who are much stronger than me, so I can’t even imagine what they are going through.”
Kenny’s weight gain kept going on over the years. His weight went from 235 pounds in 2007 to a huge 315 pounds in 2008. In 2009, three years after he broke up with his ex, he decided he’d had enough and started a water-only fasting program.
So what exactly is a water fast?
According to a study from 2021, water-only fasting is when you stop eating food completely and only drink water. People think that this kind of fasting is good for your health and can help you eat and live healthier. It has been found that this kind of intervention can cause changes in the body that could be good for health. “They include increased ketogenesis, changed hormone activity, fewer signs of inflammation and oxidative stress, lipolysis, autophagy, and better physical and mental health,” it says.
Kenny Saylors drank nothing but water for 55 days
Some people might find it easier to lose weight than others, while others might have to work harder. If a method works for one person, that doesn’t mean it will work for another. So, before you start any program or method to lose weight, you should talk to a doctor to find out what might work best for you.
Now, Kenny Saylors started the fasting program sure that he could do it. He had a little more than 53% body fat at the time. He had 55 days of only water in front of him, which is a very long time.
Kenny’s doctor told him to drink “Smartwater,” which has electrolytes added to it. Electrolytes are certain minerals that help organs and cells work properly.
Again, we want to stress that if any of our readers want to try something similar, they should always talk to a doctor first.
Just a few days into the fast, Kenny had his first colonic irrigation. Warm water was used to help clean the waste out of his colon. After that, Kenny continued to only drink water, with the help of his friends and family. He also played tennis and worked out in general as well as he could.
Even though it was hard, he kept going to dinner parties and BBQs with many of his friends and didn’t give in to the temptation to eat.
As time went on, things got harder and harder. Kenny slowly lost energy. He couldn’t even get out of bed some days. He was meant to fast for 40 days at first. But when he heard that a man named Agasi Vartanyan had fasted for 50 days, Kenny decided that breaking that record was something he had to try to do.
How did he do then? Kenny did a great job in the end. He lost about 50 pounds all together. Now he had a chance to live a healthier life. A few years later, he started gaining weight again and almost reached 500 pounds.
So, in 2013, Kenny decided to start living a healthier life again. In addition, he launched a website where people could follow his journey, which he termed “Reinventing Kenny.”
“Because of my weight, my quality of life was so bad that I almost lived alone. Saylors wrote on his website, “I couldn’t walk across a flat parking lot without getting out of breath, and I couldn’t even climb stairs without excruciating pain in my joints from carrying around so much fat.”
“I didn’t WANT to be this way, but after more than a decade and hundreds of failed attempts to control my obesity – trying every diet, program, and way of life imaginable – I had given up and accepted that I would always be “the fat guy.”
He had to act right now or suffer a “early, senseless death.” So, he took selfies, which he called “the pictures I never wanted to take,” to encourage himself and show others that big changes were possible.
Kenny worked hard. He changed how he ate and worked out, and as a result, he lost 80 pounds. The Covid 19 pandemic was a big setback, and in 2021, other things slowed him down even more.
“Life was even harder on me because I had to deal with a series of emotional problems that almost broke me and brought me to the edge of depression. “When I was 420 pounds, I realized I needed a goal and people to hold me accountable in order to do the impossible,” he said.
Kenny decided for sure that he needed to lose weight and get in shape.