It’s a beautiful thing to be in a deep enough relationship where you can put on a few pounds together and still be in love with one another. But for this Indiana couple, perhaps they got a little too comfortable.
Lexi and Danny Reed have been together for 10 years. Over time, they grew very comfortable with one another and, as Danny put it in an interview with the Rachael Ray Show, “We would just overindulge in any food that we liked — fast food, chinese buffet.” It wasn’t uncommon for them to eat three to five plates a piece at the buffet.
“As a couple, we got comfortable together and didn’t seem as much of a problem as it actually was,” Danny told the daytime television show.
When Danny and Lexi got married two years ago, they weighed more than 750 pounds combined. Lexi was at 485 and Danny at 280 pounds.
While they still loved each other, Lexi confessed to the television program that they were, “Not living the life that [they] wanted.”
So on New Year’s eve, 2016, the couple from Terre-Haute in west central Indiana made a resolution.
“We just decided to we were going to start working out and eating healthy and from there on out our lives just changed,” Lexi explained.
OVer the next year together, they lost more than 300 pounds combined — that’s a full 40 percent of their previous body weight!
“We set a goal of going to the gym at least four times a week, just thirty minutes, just to get moving,” Lexi said. “For me, almost 500 pounds, that wasn’t an easy feat.”
The couple worked together to stick to their goals. Lexi described their teamwork to Rachael Ray, “There would be a day where I was having a bad day and I wouldn’t want to work out and he’d be like, ‘Babe, we have to go to the gym.'”
“She’d be my support and I’d be her support,” Danny chimed in.
Learning to support one another through this transformation has strengthened the Reed’s marriage. “We can do more things together,” Danny observed. “It’s definitely improved our relationship and I feel that we’ve become a lot closer.”
It certainly hasn’t been an easy journey.
“The hardest part of the whole experience,” Lexi remembered, “was probably just giving up the foods that were comfort foods, so we took the foods that we loved that were unhealthy and we started making healthier versions.”
The Indiana woman shares some of her recipes on an Instagram account she created to document her fitness journey under the handle @fatfirlfedup. Lexi shares inspirational messages, pictures from the gym and hikes, and of the delicious, healthy foods that the Reeds now eat. Her profile has picked up 138,000 followers.
“When I was overweight,” Lexi told Rachael Ray, “I felt tired all the time, I didn’t have a lot of energy… I would get out of breath just walking. Now I feel healthier, I feel happier. Mentally, I feel like a completely different person than I was just last year. Basically I saved my life and now I’m living a new life as a positive, healthier, happier me.”
Congratulations Lexi and Danny. We’re so glad you’re feeling better — keep up the great work.
