television
Breaking barriers by Dustin Shrader
GAY ATLANTA COUPLE BREAKS DOWN BARRIERS TO SHED POUNDS ON A&E’S POPULAR NEW REALITY SHOW, FIT TO FAT TO FIT
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ramell, a young bodybuilder and business owner has one of the best bodies in the country. Jason Wright and his partner Johnny, nicknamed “salty and sweet,” enable each other with poor eating and exercise habits.
Describe the filming process for us.
Jason: We met with our trainer, Tramell Smith the first time on camera. I think it was our first shoot. He came to our home and he looked through our kitchen cabinets and in our refrigerator to see what we ate and how we ate, so he could get That’s the scene set for the latest an understanding of our diet. episode of Fit to Fat to Fit, the A&E channel’s reality show that asks train- Tramell gained 66 pounds to lose it ers to gain weight so they can better back with us. Now, at the end of the relate to their clients while they all show when we were done filming, lose it together. By gaining 60 pounds, none of us hit our weight-loss goal, but Tramell looks to hold this soon-to-be- since then we’ve pretty much all hit it, married Atlanta couple accountable or are pretty close. for their weight loss while making Was this a first-time venture in health them accountable to each other. for you? Jason and Johnny signed up for F2F2F last summer, and now they give David Jason: I at my heaviest was 457 pounds. Atlanta the behind the scenes scoop I had weight-loss surgery in 2010, and I on their journey and how much one lost down to the 300-pound range, but I show and one man helped to change yo-yoed there and never got any further. I really didn’t exercise and do things physitheir lives. cal. I was just thinking that if I didn’t eat
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Trammel Smith, trainer, during filming for Fit to Fat to Fit. photos: Courtesy A&E
so much I would lose weight because I had been doing it to that point having gone thought the weight-loss surgery process. I became too reliant on it. I wasn’t doing what I needed to do to continue losing weight. Johnny: Me personally, I had been a little bit physical. In high school I played football and I’ve always dabbled in drama so I’d be in shows that required me to dance, so that kept me active, but as far as actual hard-core exercise, training, all that stuff, running, lifting weights, not really. How grueling was this process from start to finish? Johnny: Extremely. Jason: Yeah, it was extremely grueling. The first day that we were on camera working with the trainer, they took us to some high school, Atlanta public schools track and field down near Turner Field. They put us with a sled with weights on it wanting us to push it and run and do all this stuff and here we are. I was 318 pounds. Johnny was 312 pounds and