Son, father inspire FOX 5 employee to lose weight

If your New Year's resolution is to lose weight, you know it's going to be a challenge. We all know someone who is a weight loss success story. At FOX 5, that someone is David Ealy.
   
Ealy says after the birth of his son Ellis seven years ago, he started thinking about how his own father had struggled with his weight. He wished his dad had been able to turn things around.
   
That's when he decided he needed to get healthy; for his son, for his wife and for himself.

As a satellite coordinator at FOX 5, phone calls, and sometimes stress, are part of the job for Ealy. And for many years, so was food.

"Anything. Something, just something. But it was all free, even if you weren't hungry, you would eat," said Ealy.
     
As Ealy grew up, he watched his father struggle with his weight. He lost his dad to an aneurysm when he was 16.

"It was hard for him to get around, even though he could run a little bit. He couldn't run like I could," Ealy said. "I'm 42 now, and he was 43 when he died. That scared me, I said, will I be 43 years old? If I don't hurry up and get myself together, will I be 43 years old and gone? You know."

A photo snapped in 2005 with old school rapper Dougie Fresh was David's wakeup call. He remembers staring at it, at himself.

"I just remember that was the moment that I said, ‘I'm done,'" said Ealy. "I said I'm 35. I have a son that's about to be one.  And I said, in five years, he's going to want to play football.  And I'm not going to be able to hang with him," said Ealy.
       
That day, Ealy cut out the sodas he relied on for energy at work. He stopped taking the elevator to get downstairs to the tape storage room, and taking the stairs instead. And he started rethinking what, and how much, he was eating.

"I would never say, "I am on a diet."  I just changed the way I eat.  Because you start saying "diet" and people are like, Oh, I'm on a diet!  I didn't say I couldn't eat it, I just didn't," said Ealy.
     
For six months he didn't get on a scale.

"Because I felt like if I saw it, I'd be like, Okay, let me go back to eating, I'm good -- the regular way that I eat," Ealy said.
     
People started noticing he was slimming down. He lost 10 pounds, then 20, then 30, and then more. He dropped from a size 50 pants to a 40.

"One of the first experiences I remember was going into the clothing store and not going to the big persons' section.   When I tried on the clothes there, and realized that those clothes were actually too big for me.  I get chills even thinking about that moment.  Even now on my arm.  Because it was like, wow.  Oh my goodness," explained Ealy.

Recently a friend sent David a picture, comparing the old David with the new David. The picture shows how far he's come in his fight to lose weight. Ellis is now eight, and David, 110 pounds lighter, can play with him and be the dad he wants to.     

"Like I tell anybody, if I can do it, anybody can do it.  Because let me tell you, I love food. I just had to get it done.  And I can tell you right now, in 2013, I'm very happy I did it," said Ealy.

Ealy says his best advice if you want to lose weight, is just do it and stick with it. And on those days you don't feel like going to the gym, just go. He tries to exercise at least four days a week, and the payoff  is he feels better than he has in years.