Dustin Brown readily admits that isolation is dangerous to people crying out for help and he has proven it by being completely open and honest about his challenges with weight on the social media platform TikTok.
He committed himself to getting healthy after being tired of having Diabetes, being on a sleep apnea machine, and having high cholesterol and blood pressure but the catalyst to making a change happened when his father was on his death bed from pancreatic cancer and Dustin made a promise to him to get his health back.
Initially, between 2006 and 2009, Dustin lost 250 pounds using the motivation of his dad’s death but it was not sustainable, he was overexercising and eating too little. He quickly gained the weight that he lost back.
Instead of allowing himself to be defeated, he said he forgave himself and he started the process again, and committed to a plan that was more beneficial and realistic. After committing to the new plan in 2017, he lost 285 pounds and is now unrecognizable.
He admits that he felt inadequate and was ashamed of himself and it took a lot of soul-searching to treat himself better so he started posting videos of his journey on TikTok to inspire others and to talk about the challenges that he still faces.
He creates three types of videos on TikTok, transformation, weight loss advice, and eating disorder and addiction videos, he has 417k followers and 11.5 million likes.
After losing the massive amount of weight he had horrific hanging skin. Insurance considers excess skin removal surgery to be cosmetic unless it’s causing health issues so this must be paid out of pocket.
Dustin started a GoFundMe campaign and has raised enough money to have skin removal surgery. He credits disclosing his challenges and being brutally honest on TikTok as a huge part of his success. He goes by the handle @losetogain3 he wants to show people how to keep the weight off and make the transformation sustainable.