A man from Ohio who was confined to a wheelchair after his weight skyrocketed to 700 pounds has turned his life around, ditching his 6,000-calorie daily diet and losing a whopping 42 percent of his body weight in five years—all without surgery.
Zachary Muncy, 26, is a fitness influencer from Columbus. For Mr. Muncy, life looked very different five years ago when he was suffering at his peak weight, could barely move, and was restricted to a wheelchair.
Addiction to Food
Mr. Muncy remembers a shameful encounter at the tender age of 9 when a school teacher pulled him aside and questioned him for buying three honey buns at lunchtime.
“I never learned to have a healthy relationship with food because I was not only shamed by my peers but also my teachers,” Mr. Muncy said. “That was a pretty defining spot for me, as a kid, that kind of transcended and then multiplied the issues as I grew up.”
As a teen, Mr. Muncy developed a binge eating disorder. At his worst, he would easily consume 6,000 calories a day, with a diet comprising junk food, fast food, and no portion control.
A typical breakfast included three to four eggs and an entire pack of bacon or something from McDonald’s. Lunch included a value meal from Wendy’s, McDonald’s, or Burger King, and dinner was the same, anything “quick, easy, and cheap.”
If Mr. Muncy did have food in the house, it would be the junk food that he would binge on.
“I mean, it was awful,” he said. “I was dealing with the food addiction, I was dealing with the depression that came with it, I isolated myself from basically everybody. I was just kind of in my own hole. I got to the point where I was wheelchair-bound. I could only walk maybe 5 feet without significant back pain and [being] out of breath and just getting dizzy.”
Time for Change
Mr. Muncy’s physical limitations compounded his mental health struggles, and by the age of 19, he weighed 700 pounds. It was around this time that he first became aware of the scale of his problem.“My blood pressure was crazy, I was pre-diabetic ... everything was stacked against me,” he said. “I remember going to my doctor’s office ... I was in there with a wheelchair. At this point in my journey, I had full-blown lymphedema in my left leg and my right leg.”
“He was like, ‘You would be lucky to see the age of 30, and I would be surprised if you were still here by 25 with how everything is going,’” said Mr. Muncy, who admitted that, through the lens of depression, he was “actually kind of glad to hear that.”
Luckily, when the doctor’s words sunk in, a greater part of himself decided that “enough was enough.”
On July 25, 2019, he embarked on a journey for change.
“I laid out an entire month of meal preps. ... I basically kind of had to learn the language of nutrition,” he said. “I spent many, many hours reading online about macros, calories, different diet methods ... I settled on a calorie goal, and within that calorie goal I just pretty much ate whatever I wanted.”
Mr. Muncy’s new diet started with a breakfast comprising two protein shakes and two yogurts. His meal prep for lunch and dinner included an 8-ounce portion of meat and a vegetable for every meal, with one “unhealthy” component to satisfy his food cravings, in a reasonable portion size.
‘Light at the End of the Tunnel’
Mr. Muncy began working through his food addiction with a therapist. He worked with tasks and workbooks related to his binge eating disorder. He also began exercising from his wheelchair.“It would be literally just me lifting my legs up, doing leg kicks, lifting my arms up, like literally the most basic bodily movements ... 20 minutes a day for the first three months,” said Mr. Muncy, who lost 90 pounds in the first 90 days and saw significant changes in his capacity for movement.
“Obviously my body is thanking me for that, so I was actually able to get up and walk a little bit,” he said. “My cardio for probably the first year of my journey was walking from my kitchen wall to my living room wall, and it’s probably a good 200 feet. That was the majority of my exercise for the first year of weight loss.”
By the six-month mark, Mr. Muncy had lost another 70 pounds. At this juncture, he met with a dietitian through Ohio State University to make sure that what he was doing was “actually healthy and sustainable.”
Mr. Muncy began to regain his life.
“I was able to get up, and I could move. I had my body back, I had my confidence back. ... I was more independent,” he said. “I didn’t need help getting my shoes on, getting my pants on ... I could take out the trash, I could get in and out of the shower by myself ... and the reason why I was so confident is because what I had built up was working for me.
Independence
In the early days of his transformation, Mr. Muncy relied on his mother for support. He would give her a “laundry list of groceries,” and his mother would cook and prepare everything. Once he regained his independence, Mr. Muncy took over.
Nine months into his weight loss journey—in April 2020—he met his now-girlfriend, and they weathered the storm together.
“She was always very supportive, very loving, very patient with me because, at this point, I was still 500 pounds. I wasn’t your typical boyfriend,” Mr. Muncy said. “We‘d go on walks, and I’d have to have a bag with everything in it: water, inhaler, everything. So she was very, very supportive throughout the entire process ... always there for me to talk, to be that extra source of inspiration.”
“I didn’t have many friends, acquaintances, so I didn’t really have anybody to share my progress with,” he said. “When I made my content, I’ve always made it in the mindset that I was talking to my 700-pound self, and try to make it as digestible and relatable to somebody that is that bad-off.”
Mr. Muncy began to receive an overwhelmingly positive response on social media.
A New Chapter
People from Mr. Muncy’s past have even resurfaced since he transformed his life and shared his story in public. Many congratulate him on his weight loss; some have apologized for past behavior.“I was ’the guy that lost weight,' I was able to talk to people in town again that recognized me ... it’s actually been a very humbling experience,” Mr. Muncy said. “There’s been some bullies that I encountered in high school that have actually reached out and apologized, which was very nice.”
At the time of writing, Mr. Muncy weighs 298 pounds, totaling a weight loss of just over 400 pounds in five years without surgery. He has hit his goal weight and is now “maintaining” it. He had his first loose skin removal surgery in May 2021 and is preparing for another in March 2024.
Now a fitness influencer, Mr. Muncy advises others struggling with food addiction against going cold turkey, recommending instead baby steps, “a lot of trial and error,” and prioritizing mental health at the start of any weight loss journey.
“I highly recommend that if you genuinely relate to my story, with coping with food binging, if you think you have an unhealthy relationship with food, please, it starts with therapy,” he told The Epoch Times. “[O]nce you understand where your mental health is at, and how you can manage different circumstances better, then you can also apply that to the food you eat and the choices you make.”
