DoctorOz: Couples Who Lost Half of Themselves in a Good Way | Oz Weight Loss

They say you should never lose yourself when you get into a relationship but today we're going to meet couples who lost half of themselves in a good way because they are now half their weight. That's right couples are here to share their secrets to how they are living healthier and happier lives with the major weight loss and they're doing it side by side. First there's Ethan and Becky. Here's a photo of them in love but with some issues. They motivated each other to lose a whopping 350 pounds. Ethan and Becky come on out. I mean wow. Take a pause look at that difference. I'm so proud of you guys. Unbelievable. Please join me. I've been looking forward to meeting you the whole week. Oh well we're glad to be here. So Ethan let me start with you. You started the journey first. If I understand correctly you shared your numbers with so I'm going to go to the audience with the same numbers. You were 450 pounds. Yes. And you probably realized there was an issue but something finally took you to a place where you were motivated to take that very first step. What was it? Well so my mom had passed away a few years back and she told me yeah thank you she told me her only regret was not being there to see her grandkids grow up. My kids. So that kind of was just resonating in my head just kind of bouncing around. I couldn't shake that and then I was you know real down about everything and we took a trip to Universal Studios. We were going to ride these Harry Potter rides. We were so excited and we couldn't fit. We couldn't fit on the rides and that was kind of like that that okay got to take some steps. It was a wake-up call. And it's awkward emotionally because people are looking at you and you don't want to be objectified like that. Yes absolutely. So Becky what was it about seeing your husband Ethan's success that got you thinking I want to make this change happen within myself? Well you got to hold on to your man. I didn't want anybody else moving in on him so I had to make a change. Says the gorgeous woman to the oldest. But you know it just when you want to do fun stuff and you can't because you just don't feel good. I mean that vacation was such an eye-opener for us. I mean huffing and puffing and trying to do stuff and then waiting in line to not be able to do anything. It's just it's it's a different life when when you just can't participate in things you want to. Let me ask what has changed in your life? How are you better off now that you've lost the weight? Well yeah so I was pre-diabetic no longer. I had fatty liver disease no longer. I was using my rescue inhaler like 10 times a day. Go to tie my shoes now haven't used it in over a year right. Oh my goodness. So all sorts of health benefits you know and just the feeling of being lighter you know it's like I was weighed down quite literally. You know I felt like I was a cow and baby cows weigh at six months 450 pounds. Hey so quite literally you know I was feeling like a cow. So now I feel just so much better. When we first started the show people didn't believe that they could reverse chronic illnesses with just lost weight loss of weight and simple behavior changes and it's become evident now but I think there's repeating if you can get rid of diabetes or changes to your organs that are not good or even dealing with a problem like a needing an inhaler yeah that you think you've got to be addicted to and never leave home without it's been a year that's stunning. Yep. Becky. I had horrible plantar fasciitis and as a nurse you know you're on your feet all your entire shift you know you're moving and I mean it got to a point where I mean rolling on the ice bottles and you know everything you could. I feel great. I walk at least two miles a day. I you know you just feel so much better. You can spring out of bed. You can you know life's just spring out of bed. That's actually it. You will look forward to life because you're not carrying around another person with you except the person that you love which is okay. Come on over. I want everyone to see how you did it. You're going to share your secrets to success. We're going to do with a watch this a carb stairwell. Right. It's a carb step down. See what I did there. Right. So show us the carb step down. We'll start with the C. Walk us through how you done. This is the thing. This is not about going cold turkey which is what some people would try but either you thought for you that wasn't going to work. No. I mean I like cold turkey like turkey sandwiches but I don't like it when it comes to you know just stopping something all together. He's funny too Becky. I like this. It never stops. The gift that keeps giving. Yes. So you thought it was better to go more daintily. Yeah. So we started off with getting rid of our comfort foods which is you know who in my mind the better it tastes the the higher a priority it is to get rid of. So pastas. Everybody loves them. Your cookies, sweets, anything like that. We found some decent replacements. You know you have to you have to maintain a flavor. You're never going to be able to succeed. You're a big carb guy. How do you get rid of. Yeah. So I love pasta. I love spaghetti. So one thing that I did was right here egg wraps are just a fantastic you know replacement you can have in place of those heavy carb pastas right. Just a few simple ingredients no carbs in it whatsoever and you replace it. I know a lot of people like zucchini or something like that but to me that still tastes just like zucchini. Luckily with this I was able to create a lasagna that tasted like a lasagna as you can see here in this photo. That's a lasagna made with egg wraps. It's like my favorite dinner. Yeah I mean looks delicious and it tastes delicious. But my big thing is crunch you know like potatoes. We can't have french fries but you can do avocado fries and you can use pork rinds or pork panko or something to crisp them up. You know there's a lot of options out there. You have to be committed. You have to do some research. All right next up in the carb step down is A which stands for accessory carbs because it's not the carbs that you're what you know that you can see it's ones that are hidden that can really hurt you. Yeah you know I call those the sneaky carbs right. You don't know they're there. Oh I'm having some meatballs. These are delicious. No carbs right but there's bread crumbs. Oh I'm having a salad. Salad dressing's got the carbs. I'm having the salad. Wait there's croutons. There's all my carbs for the day in the first three bites. Whoops. You know so that happens. All right ours for the rolls, the buns, the bread. Becky what you substitute these with? You know there are actually some great bread substitutes out there that are low carb. We do a lot of tortillas. The low carb tortillas and we'll wrap our burgers and stuff with that. We do where we just take shredded cheese and egg and throw it in a mini waffle maker. Crisp it up. It's delicious to have a burger on that. I mean you cannot go wrong. You really can't. Yeah yeah that's by the way that's a that's a real meal you guys make. Yeah yep yep. That's a regular staple at our house. It is. I'm spoiled. He does he does a lot of cooking for us so. And eating so it works out. He cooks and he eats it. All right and B is for beverages which is really a slippery slope. You have to cut out here. This is where Americans get their empty calories. Yeah well and a lot of people think oh I'm gonna have 100% fruit juice. That's fantastic except the sugar content is the same as your sodas right. So really all the beverages you see right there the sodas you know the high carb coffee drinks your juices all of those are just jam-packed with the carbohydrates. So you can replace that first and foremost with water. Water is always going to be a solid choice whether it's sparkling water just regular water that's great. You know and if you need some flavor you can go the diet soda route that's going to also be no carbs. But just eliminating those carbs from your beverages and it also reduces the calories too. The other thing that I didn't put on this step down is the fact that you changed when you ate. Not just what you ate. So you did something called intermittent fasting we talked a lot about in the show. It's the foundation system 21. Yep. And I theoretically you'd stop eating dinner by eight and not have breakfast till noon the next day. You have a big window. You don't need that many hours but directionally how did you make that happen in your life? So you know they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day and you know for us it was as long as we started eating breakfast at noon right. So you know you limit it and I know you're a big proponent of this intermittent fasting and it's something that we really found to be successful by narrowing down the time frame in which you're consuming food you're consuming calories consuming carbs consuming everything you eliminate all that extra time you spend eating snacking at night you know first thing in the morning well it's just a couple donuts times four you know. So you just shorten that window of time and you know you can focus on eating that nutritious good for your food from you know and actually noon to 8 p.m that was the window we both used. So if you feel a little craving at 9 10 in the morning you have anything you did you know coffee or how'd you get past that? I'm a water drinker. I drink you know and I will chug a bottle of water you know and it does it makes a difference it makes you feel better and my mom always said busy hands are happy hands so you got to keep going you know you got to you got to keep active. All right you head to you've got a digital exclusive with Ethan and Becky where I'm going to put their brains to the test during roundup. Are you ready for this? The newly fit game you will not want to miss this. I have really adored meeting you guys. Oh thank you. When we come back we're going to meet a couple who lost 200 pounds without giving up their snacking. Their secrets are next but first Tasha and Javon lost 255 pounds by engaging in some friendly couple competitions. Take a look at Hello I'm Tasha and I'm Javon and we went from this to this. Together we've lost 255 pounds in a year. You want to know how? We like to get a little competitive. Normally we walk this one mile park loop twice but today we're going to do three loops. We also set up a challenge to make each other a low carb low calorie dessert. What I made for my wife is a chocolate strawberry milkshake with whipped topping and sugar-free chocolate chips. That's really good. I lost 150 pounds. This was me two years ago. The thing I'm the most proud of is that I was able to lose the weight without losing my love for good food. Once I saw that she could do it it inspired my weight loss journey. I'm down 50 pounds in just six months. We even have a strategy for when we go out to eat. I pull up the menu on my phone that way we can get creative. If the menu offers something with green peppers and it also offers a grilled chicken sandwich we can swap out the sandwich bun for two slices of green peppers and then we have a grilled chicken green pepper sandwich. It works for the both of us. Grills good. Oh my goodness that was Christy and her husband Johnny. They lost over 200 pounds combined but they did it without depriving themselves of good food and fun. Today we are celebrating couples who lost half their body weight together. Christy and Johnny joined us via zoom so we talk about that. Christy I love I adore that you got fit without giving up being a foodie. How'd you end up finding success? Yeah so overthinking weight loss in the past is how I failed so many times. My main mindset is to always eat when I'm hungry so I actually I'm going to invite you into my fridge. I always have fresh cut veggies available so that way if I do get hungry after a meal I have something readily available to eat or if I just want a snack all day it's a guilt-free snack. So Johnny you followed Christy's lead. You lost 50 pounds in just the past six months. Congratulations. What was the most valuable thing that Christy has taught you on this journey? What do you want to say to her? That's a great question Dr. Oz. Really there's probably a ton of things that she taught me. The first one being just to have that self-confidence. Just instill that in myself that I can do it no matter how challenging it is. But I also think probably the bigger step would be just accepting the accountability, accepting health, not being afraid to ask for it whenever you do have the struggle or you do have the doubt. Good and sage advice. Christy I know you have a sweet tooth and you have a go-to snack to kick your sugar cravings. Please break it down for us because I think America is going to be copying which whatever you did to get where you are they're going to copy you. So show us what you eat. Yeah sure. So giving up sugar was something that was impossible for me. I actually made the switch to Stevia over two years ago and one of my favorite sweet treats that I always make for us is a baked peach. So basically I just cut a peach in half and I take cinnamon and Stevia and I sprinkle it on the peach. Equal parts Stevia, cinnamon, how much of each? Yes, yes equal parts. And then I just bake it at 350 for 16 minutes. I actually made some earlier so that way we can try it with you Dr. Oz. This is the best part right here. My goodness. So I'm just going to be clear on this. All we need to do is some peaches, cinnamon, some Stevia and then you take the cream at the end. Look at this guys. This is just regular cream. What is this? So it's sugar-free Cool Whip and I just take two tablespoons roughly and I plop it on top and then it's kind of like a peach cobbler but without the guilt. Well I'm going to be the judge here if you don't mind. I made myself one as you were speaking. So I've got Here it is guys. It looks good. It's getting close to my mouth. Let me see if you feel better. Oh you got to eat this like a donut. Come on now. Yeah it might be easier to pick it up. You know what? Now I know how you lost all that weight. Servers with a smile. I'm very proud of you guys. You keep doing it together. We'll keep telling your story. I'm going to keep eating this thing. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss out on new videos to live the good life.