One actor from The Blind Side is totally unrecognisable after shedding more than 100lbs during an incredible health journey.
Quinton Aaron shot to fame as Michael Oher in the hit sports movie alongside Sandra Bullock back in 2009. He’s also had roles in everything from One Tree Hill to Law & Order over the years. But in 2021, Quinton realised he wanted to change his entire outlook on life, despite his career successes.
The actor weighed 559lbs at his heaviest, which is equivalent to almost 40 stone. But after a strict regimen of diet and exercise, he told TMZ he dropped to 462lbs (33 stone). Speaking in 2022, Quinton revealed his target weight was somewhere between 300 and 325 pounds.
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Back in 2014, the star had a wake up call when he was booted off a US Airways flight for being too big for his seat. He was attempting to travel to Rochester, New York, but would require an extra economy seat to make the journey.
Speaking to ABC News, he revealed: “As I saw the seats, I’m literally hoping that no one had to sit next to me because I knew it wasn’t going to work if they did.” But alas, someone else had to sit beside him, and he left the flight “because it was embarrassing”.
He said at the time: “I live in California. I want to go to the beach in the summertime with a tank top on and have girls chasing me down the beach one day.” And so his weight loss journey began.
The star even founded The Aaron Quinton Foundation in 2012, which focuses on anti-bullying campaigns as a response to childhood obesity. He said: “There’s a lot of kids that get picked on because of their outer appearance and not everyone has had the luxury of growing up knowing the right foods to eat or knowing what a healthier lifestyle is.”
Now Quinton is still focused on his weight loss journey and looks unrecognisable compared to his former self. He told TMZ in 2022: “I used the new year as a way to get a new me.” Spurred on by the Covid-19 pandemic, Quinton found himself binge eating and decided he needed to change things up.
Speaking to the Today Show last year, the actor said he hadn’t had a chocolate bar in more than three months, and instead gets his sugar fix from “fruit or orange juice”. He added: “When I’m eating, and then I take that first breath, that means I’m done. When I take that first breath, my body is saying, ‘Alright bro, we’re good.’ I can consume less food if I pay attention to my body when it’s saying it’s full.”
The star also uses intermittent fasting as a way to keep healthy, and eats smaller portions at mealtimes. His mental health is also a big part of the journey, confessing that losing his mum shortly before filming The Blind Side triggered overeating.
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He explained: “I had to compartmentalise my grief — my mourning for my mom. I put that aside because there was a bigger task at hand that needed to happen, which was doing the movie and making the best of this opportunity, which is what my mom would have wanted me to do.”
But after filming, “I packed on a lot of weight. I would eat even if I wasn’t hungry. That was how I coped, but it didn’t help anything. It was just a void filler. I just stopped all that mentally.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
