Wednesday, July 29, 2009

People Magazine - Incredible Shrinking Couple - January 14, 2008


Andy in People Magazine
People MagazineIncredible Shrinking Couple
by Ashley Williams

ANDY SORRELLS
AGE 30

NOW!
220 LBS.
HEIGHT 6'3" SIZE 36

BEFORE
500 LBS.
SIZE 60

HIS TURNING POINT

"I started to see Maggie lose weight. Something about her just changed. She was happier. She wasn't worried about food, and so she had more time for me, for her family. And of course, I was like, 'Well, wait a second. I'll try that.'"


MAGGIE SORRELLS
AGE 34 NOW!
160 LBS.
HEIGHT 5'6" SIZE 8


BEFORE
440 LBS.
SIZE 34


HER TURNING POINT

"I didn't know I was 440 lbs., because I weighed myself on our household scale and it only went up to 300 lbs. Then one day I was in a hospital and I got on the scale and it said 440 lbs. and I started crying. That was a wake-up call."

Andy and Maggie Sorrells are used to people staring at them in restaurants. But whereas it was once the size of their bodies—he used to weigh 500 lbs., she topped out at 440 lbs.—that attracted attention, on a recent trip to a barbecue joint near their Franklin, Tenn., home, it's the size of their order that gets the waitress buzzing. "Ya'll gonna split this?" she asks, puzzled, after Andy orders just one large baked potato, a garden salad and a lunch platter of chicken tenders and ribs for him and Maggie to share. Says Andy, as the waitress walks off: "That always happens to us. It's almost like they're saying, 'Do you know what you're doing?'"

Indeed they do. During the past four years or so, the Sorrellses have lost a combined total of 560 lbs.—280 lbs. each—using the Weigh Down Workshop, a faith-based weight-loss program that encourages dieters to use prayer to help them eat only when they are hungry and to divide their meals in half. "It's really just moderation and portion control," says Maggie. Andy adds, "We had to learn to appreciate the taste of something without eating 20 at the same time."...

... And even though Maggie started dieting first—around Christmas 2002—Andy, who came onboard two months later, had already lost a whopping 75 lbs. by April of 2003. "It flew off him!" she says with a laugh. And Maggie? By contrast, that same month, she was down 60 lbs. "It was harder for me," she admits. "I definitely feel like I had to fight for it."

It didn't help that Maggie has given birth to two babies—Lily, 2, and Jacob, 5 months—in the past few years. Still, today she is only 20 lbs. away from her goal weight of 140 lbs. and says that her husband, who has maintained his weight at 220 lbs. since May 2004, remains "my biggest cheerleader." Andy says, "Even though I was ahead, we both had the same purpose: We wanted to lose weight."

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How Weigh Down Helped Me Lose Over 250 Pounds!

Andy SorrellsI was always the biggest and tallest kid in school. I weighed close to 11 pounds at birth and just went up from there! By the high school years, I had become very anti-social, very angry, and generally depressed. Even though I went to church growing up, all that I knew to do was to eat. My first year of college, I dropped out and was diagnosed as manic depressive. I started taking a variety of prescriptions to help me overcome this. I also began experimenting with numerous illegal drugs because frankly the doctor prescribed medications weren’t helping. On top of this, I was SO deluded in my own selfish pride that I thought everyone else was the problem. I thought they should change and I should be accepted for who I was. My life was quickly spiraling down,with seemingly no hope for the future. On September11th, 2001, I finally got fear. I realized that life was short and that I seriously needed to makesome changes. I met Maggie in 2000, and we were married in August of 2002. She had read Rise Above and done Weigh Down at Home and had had great success. Unfortunately, she gained some ofthe weight back while we had dated. At the end of 2002, she called the Weigh Down offices and got into a Weigh Down Advanced class. I watched her change emotionally, spiritually and physically. We joined Remnant Fellowship Church in February of 2003, and I took a Weigh Down Advanced class myself. Within 18 months, I had lost all of my weight, down 257 pounds!!!! I had also come off anti-depressants and the illegal drugs and am now full of joy and hope!!!!! - Andy

Weigh Down Helped Me Lose 300 Pounds

I want to praise God for the truth that has come from the Weigh Down Workshop. It is the only program that has ever loved me enough to tell me the WHOLE truth! I was raised up in the church and was thought to be a "good Christian girl,"but what does that mean? Well, I can tell you what it doesn’t mean. I was spoiled. I grabbed and got what I wanted when I wanted, never knowing that it is so detestable to God. I was very greedy for food, that got me to 440 pounds. I also would cut myself with a razor blade from my wrist to my elbows. I would steal and lie. I had sexual sins that make me want to throw up just remembering. I had 20 credit cards and owed over 20 thousand dollars in credit card debt alone.

I never knew until Weigh Down's teachings from the Bible, just how spoiled I was. It was so deeply rooted in my heart, that I still pray that God will scrape my heart so bare that nothing but love and devotion to him remains. It truly disgusts me to see that spoiled nature try to come up; never do I want to miss his spirit again. I used to be convicted of something days after it happened, but never enough to change. Now I want to change and never do it again. Praise God!! Praise God, I don't have to destroy his temple like I used to do again. Praise God for removing 300 pounds from my morbidly obese body!! A miracle!

Praise God he continues to teach me to be led by his spirit with the money he has blessed our family with. I praise God for being taught how to be a wife and a mother, and that he has blessed me with a godly husband and a beautiful son and daughter and true friends that tell me the truth and help when I have a need. Thank you God for Weigh Down, for this freedom, for all your blessings and for this true relationship with you!