A Rhode Island man claims he lost 132 pounds by eating Chick-fil-A‘s Spicy Southwest Salad for lunch every single day for more than a year.
Tom Carroll, 34, a Boston based digital content producer, said he weighed 360 pounds when he began his weight loss journey in July 2023 in his Substack essay ‘Chick-fil-A Saved My Life.’
“I had never seen it so high,” Carroll wrote. “But if I’m being completely honest with myself, it had probably been higher at various points that summer. I never would have known, because that was the first time I had stepped on a scale since the fall of 2019.”
Carroll said the last time he had previously stepped on a scale was when he was warned about his weight issue at a doctor’s office in 2019.
“The nurse at my new doctor’s office told me I was 346 pounds,” he wrote. “‘That’s good eatin’!’ I joked with her.”
“Until it ain’t,” the nurse allegedly responded.
“I didn’t ask for a clarification, obviously – had internally died on impact as soon as she said it,” Carroll wrote.
Carroll said he was embarrassed to see a doctor again and decided to make changes to his eating habit, but didn’t go all-in on his Chick-fil-A plan until Black Friday 2023, after having believed he was having a heart attack while eating Thanksgiving leftovers with his wife and friends.
“I had never felt anything like it before, and I hope to never feel anything like it again,” Carroll wrote. “This was the closest I have ever felt to death.”
Carroll’s Chick-fil-A Spicy Southwest Salad daily lunch includes grilled chicken, mixed greens, tomatoes, roasted corn, black beans, chiles, red bell peppers and cheese with tortilla chips, pepitas and a creamy salad dressing, which totals at about 680 calories.
“It was awful,” Carroll told TODAY about his weight prior to the diet. “Going up and down stairs was an issue. … Sitting on an airplane and getting a seat belt put on was an absolute challenge. Finding clothes that fit and feeling good when you dress up wasn’t fun.”
Carroll said he would recreate his own version of the salad when Chick-fil-A was closed on Sundays.
“This has been the pillar meal for me each and every day and is what I attribute the bulk of my success to,” Carroll wrote in his essay.
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