When Tony Fantetti was in his 20s, he weighed over 500 pounds. However, when a medical emergency nearly killed him, Fantetti underwent a drastic weight-loss journey that changed his life. Fantetti, a 2008 alumnus of Camosun’s Health Care Assistant program, says that as a child he was overweight because of how he was raised.
“The mentality was, eat what you’re given on your plate, don’t stop when you’re full, and since my parents came from times when they didn’t have a lot, they overfilled plates,” he says.
By the time Fantetti was 12, he weighed 250 pounds, and, in his 20s, weighing over 500 pounds, he got an MRSA infection that nearly killed him.
“Because I was so big, they basically said, ‘We’re going to put this medication into you but the amount we have to use could kill you,’” says Fantetti. “I remember being there in the hospital, and the nurse asking me if I was afraid to die, which was interesting.”
Fantetti’s family rallied together to make a personalized diet and fitness plan for him. He trained five days a week, and his sister made specially portioned meals for him. Fantetti says that when he changed his lifestyle, the weight began melting off, which gave him further motivation.
“Before that, I didn’t leave the house or do much of anything, and then after I started becoming healthy, I started experimenting with different sports and hiking, and all kinds of stuff,” he says. “Your whole life changes.”
However, the journey was not easy, particularly at the beginning.
“I lived on the second floor, so it was only one flight of stairs—it was 10 steps in total—and I distinctly remember going up those stairs after my first workout and feeling like my body, my legs, were so sore and angry, and I just flopped down onto the floor,” says Fantetti. “I laid there for an hour at least, and I remember thinking to myself, how are you going to do this?”
Changing his habits was challenging, but Fantetti kept his eye on the end goal and persisted.
“I would go out with my friends and they would have burgers and fries, and I would be sitting there with my salad. Like, how comical is that? The biggest guy in the group sitting there munching on his tiny salad while everyone else eats burgers and fries,” says Fantetti, laughing. “It was hard sometimes just smelling them, but it was enough for me, knowing what the results were going to be, to keep away from all that stuff.”
Over a year and a half of strict self-discipline, Fantetti lost over 300 pounds. Thinking of his life before the weight loss, Fantetti reflects on how much has changed.
“I couldn’t even bend over and tie my shoes,” he says. “You don’t have much of a life when every moment you’re trying to catch your breath. There’s lots of brain fog and confusion.”
Fantetti says that the weight-loss process is intensely emotional, because emotions are physical, a product of chemistry within the body.
“The journey you take when you’re going from an obese life to a healthy life, it’s not just a physical journey. You’re expelling energy, emotion, memories,” he says. “I’d push my body to its limits, so there was no more capacity to hold the emotion in. There would be emotional waves, and I found I was actually unable to control the emotion because my physical body was spent.”
Fantetti says he has a surgery planned, after which he is going to build more muscle and continue on his path to health.
“The weight-loss journey isn’t just about losing weight, you’re actually going through a journey of discovery,” he says. “You’re going to learn a lot about yourself.”