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About 25 years ago, Rick Salewske weighed 538 pounds. “When I was gaining weight, my world just got smaller and smaller. I couldn’t fit in chairs. I couldn’t go to restaurants. My knees hurt. The steering wheel in my car hit my stomach. I couldn’t put on my shoes. I quit going to college because I couldn’t fit in the desk,” he tells TODAY.com.
In 2000, three things happened that motivated him to change:
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He dreamed that he died, and saw his brothers and sisters lowering him into the ground.
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He skipped his 20th high school reunion because he hadn’t seen his classmates over the years, and he was embarrassed about his weight.
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He got hired for a new job, over the phone, and he turned it down because he was scared: “They didn’t know I was 538 pounds. What would their eyes look like when I walked in?”
Weighing more than 500 pounds, Salewske couldn’t fit in restaurant chairs or tie his shoes.
He kept the job he had, and his company’s CEO approached him one day, wanting to help him lose weight. “I refer to him as Clarence, from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ because he was an angel. He saved my life,” Salewske says. The CEO suggested that Salewske try the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas.
There, he started following an 1,800 calorie-a-day diet. “I learned what 1,800 calories were. I quit sugar and ice cream. I ate three balanced meals,” he says. It was the early 2000s, and he centered his diet around foods popular for weight loss at the time, like bran cereal, 1% milk, fruit and Lean Cuisine meals. Over time, he learned how to cook fish, chicken and vegetables.
He also worked with a trainer and started exercising. “I could only walk a short distance, but eventually I walked a mile, then two and three. I started running and playing basketball. I burned more calories and kept eating 1,800 calories a day. It sounds simple, but it was a lot of hard work,” he says.
Over two years, he lost 300 pounds. It changed his life. His weight loss was so impressive that he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show twice — the second time he surprised his then-girlfriend of six months, Kelley, with an on-air marriage proposal. She said yes, they got married in 2003 and they now have three children, ages 18, 16 and 13.
After losing 300 pounds, Salewske met his wife and had three children.
He struggled with weight maintenance
Over the years, little habits crept back in. Salewske started to eat fast food, cookies and cheesecake. “I had gone from 538 pounds to 238 and then I got up to 270. To me, being 270 pounds was a bit of a disgrace, because I thought I was supposed to stay at 238, and I didn’t do that,” he says.
His weight gain didn’t stop there. Years passed, and then COVID hit. By May 2022 he weighed 315 pounds. He went to the dentist, and they couldn’t treat him because his blood pressure was too high. That motivated him to turn his attention back to weight loss.
When he first started exercising, Salewske’s goal was walking a mile. Over time he slowly increased his distance and started running.
A different path to weight loss
Some of the steps he took this time were the same as the ones that worked for him 20 years earlier — he cut out sugar, since he sees himself as addicted to it. “There’s a good chance I’ll never eat cakes and pies for the rest of my life,” he says.
This time, some things were different, too. He found strength in his faith. “If I don’t think I can do something at the gym, or I don’t think I can quit eating a type of food, I rely on my faith,” he says. “I truly believe I’ve been successful this second time around because of my faith. Being healthier helps my faith. And being faithful helps my exercise,” he says.
He works out for 45 minutes in the morning and 20 to 30 minutes in the evening during the week, and then on Saturdays and Sundays he aims for an hour and a half each day. He generally uses the treadmill, Stairmaster and stationary bike.
“My knees don’t hurt. My back doesn’t hurt. It feels really good living this way. I’m 62 years old, and I’m going to keep pushing myself and see how far I can go,” he says.
Salewske follows a modified form of intermittent fasting, where he only eats fruit and drinks water and coffee until 3 p.m. After that, he chooses healthy foods like fish, chicken and vegetables. He no longer tracks his calories, but he doesn’t feel he needs to — he’s maintained his weight at 210 pounds for more than a year.
One strategy that works for him is making sure he always has healthy food in the house. He points to a time when he got a flat tire on a cold, rainy day. He was hungry, and he was right in front of a McDonald’s.
He says, “I just wanted to go in and get a burger, fries and a Coke. But I told myself, ‘Rick, is that going to help you fix the flat tire? Do you have food at the house? Fix the tire, go home and eat the tuna.’”
Salewske’s journey has left him with a new outlook on life, choosing to focus on his health even in the face of challenges.
A new outlook on life
Salewske has seen differences in his perspective since he’s lost the weight. “Work has become easier since I’ve become healthier. I’m more in tune with things. I think being healthy makes me a little bit smarter,” he says.
He’s also able to look at challenges in a new light: “Whatever happens at work or at home with the kids or with financial problems — I’ve gone through two bankruptcies — it’s OK because I’m healthy. I have three kids and a darling wife. If something goes wrong, I just tell myself, ‘You’re still going to go to the gym. You’re still going to be healthy. It’s going to be OK. They can’t put 300 pounds back on you.’”
He’s a lot more outgoing now, and he cherishes his connections with people. “When I was big, I was very secluded. Now I want to talk to people and be open. My world is getting so much bigger because I let people come in,” he says.
Salewske hopes to use his story to give others hope and inspire them to make healthy changes.
He shares his journey in the Start TODAY Facebook group as a way to help people, and he told his story in a book written by Cindy Woods, Half the Man, Twice the Faith.
“With the book, I hope to help people, not just with weight loss but with whatever problems people are going through, whether they want to quit smoking or quit drinking or something else. And if the book makes a little bit of money, I want to take that and help people,” he says.
He also plans to keep up his healthy habits as he gets older: “For my next 30 years, I want to stay healthy, be a good husband, continue to raise my kids and make a difference in people’s lives. In my mind, life is beautiful. And the longer you live, the more you can enjoy it.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
