This man lost 300 pounds in 15 months through yoga and healthier eating

In 2014, Jared weighed 510 pounds. He knew he was overweight, but it wasn’t until a doctor told him he was “going to die” that he decided something had to change.

“I’ve been fat my entire life,” Jared wrote in a blog entry at the beginning of his weight loss journey, a post he eventually read out loud after having reached his goals. “Every day I have woken up heavier than I was the day before. It was a fact of life, and I accepted it. I didn’t want to be fat,” he went on to write, “but I didn’t fight against it because I knew it would require a change in lifestyle. Today is different…I do care about how I feel and how I want to live.”

That change in mindset changed everything for Jared. He drastically transformed his diet—cutting out all sweets and sugars—and began doing DDP Yoga as his main source of exercise. It wasn’t an easy process, but Jared was determined to follow through with losing weight, eventually making his way toward a healthier lifestyle. “I made goals for myself, and I chased after them with complete dedication,” he said in a video about his process. “I was losing weight, I was moving better, and that encouraged me to keep trying.”

Today, Jared can recall a time when he was barely able to get himself down to the ground or touch his toes, much less complete an entire yoga video. He gets emotional thinking about the moment he was able to complete an exercise, even if he had to do it at his own pace. “When I got winded, I stopped to breathe, but let the video continue to play. I missed a few moves and joined back in when I could and didn’t worry about trying to catch up,” he said. “I finished the video knowing that while I had not done everything as instructed, I had still made a major accomplishment.”

After 15 months of this exercise and nutrition regimen, Jared managed to drop 300 pounds, coming in at 210 pounds. His transformation is remarkable:

The workout routines that helped Jared shed pounds are from a company called DDP Yoga, a program developed by semi-retired professional wrestler Diamond Dallas Page. The workouts are a mix of cardio, yoga and traditional calisthenics.

While this method worked for Jared, there are tons of other weight loss solutions out there. You can easily find a wide variety of yoga and other fitness videos on YouTube. And of course, there’s that other piece of the puzzle. Jared cut out the sugar and replaced it with vegetables, which is a common weight loss recommendation. Inspirational stories abound of people who have found success with these methods, including this one man who dropped 15 pounds on Beyoncé’s 22-day vegan diet plan.

Stories like these prove that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. What do you want to achieve?