Sometimes people have an epiphany or life changing experience when they are at work, maybe driving in the car, or possibly at church. But for Devin Kellybrew, it was one morning in 2010 on his couch–and it was one of the scariest moments of his life. But its was what he did with this moment that is inspiring thousands of people to change their lives too.
That morning, he noticed something wrong with his mother.
“She was sitting in the living room hitting herself in the chest,” Kellybrew said. “She told me it was bad indigestion.”
Little did Devin know it was far from indigestion. Thinking it was something minor, Kellybrew left to take his kids, Cortez and Kahlil to school. When he returned home, his mother asked him to take her to the hospital. That’s when he knew something was seriously wrong.
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“My mom never goes to the hospital,” he said. “If she cut her finger off, she’d try to sew it back on herself.”
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Devin had found out his mom had 80 percent blockage in her heart. What she was feeling earlier was a heart attack. The doctors told him they were going to have to operate to save her life.
“Looking at my mother in the hospital bed, I told myself that I was fixing to change,” he said.
Kellybrew himself weighed in at 320 pounds and had spent his life eating the same foods and living the same lifestyle that landed his mother in a hospital bed.
“It was an eye opener for me. I told myself I can’t be like this. I can’t be laying in a hospital bed with my sons looking at me like this.”
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Right then, right there, he didn’t hesitate and made a decision right there. His first meal after that was at Wendy’s, where he ate a grilled chicken sandwich – without the bun. For the next month he only ate what his mother ate.
He stuck to the same hospital meals she had to eat as she was being nursed back to health. In nearly 2 months, Devin lost 20 pounds. But he didn’t stop there. As a matter of fact that weight loss just propelled him further.
“That was just eating healthy. When you’re of size, you lose weight faster,” he said. “I ate what she ate. I did that to support her. I could never make her eat like she was supposed to eat, but it was key that I support her.”
Kellybrew had previously bought the work out program p90x in 2007. It wasn’t until four years later, with no job and just determination, that he first popped the DVDs in and performed the exercises to completion. He said that was when his body began to change.
“When I started doing p90x, the chest and back video they have on there has you do a variety of push ups. They’re all hard. They’re is nothing easy about it. But the trainer tells you to modify them and the reps if you can’t do it the way they do it. I remember having to do them on my knees.”
When he first began the program he could only do 50 push-ups in one 45 minute workout. Now, after 10 months, Kellybrew can pump out 400 push ups during that same workout (and can honestly do more than that now!).
Kellybrew set a goal of reaching 205 pounds, but through eating right and daily exercise he surpassed his goal.
At his slimmest he dropped to 184. But Kellybrew insists the results started in the kitchen — not the gym.
“Everything goes back to the kitchen,” Kellybrew exclaimed. “The thing about the food is it’s about understanding the carbs, proteins and the fats. It’s about knowing…
