TIFTON — A local man is having his weight-loss journey highlighted in Men’s Health magazine. 

Damien Serrata, 31, went from weighing more than 400 pounds to just over 200.

While he said he had always been on the bigger side, even as a kid, it wasn’t until he was working in law enforcement that he realized he had a problem.

“I got to the point where I couldn’t bend over to put on my uniform or tie my shoes,” he said. “I started to realize that I wasn’t an asset to myself or to anybody else.”

Serrata said he really got motivated to do something after he lost his job in 2012. He said that he picked up a copy of the magazine and started using those nutrition tips and the weight slowly started coming off.

He said that he wasn’t unhealthy before his weight loss.

“I was sitting at over 400 pounds, but I was healthy,” he said. “I never had any problems with heart disease or high blood pressure, diabetes, nothing. I’m the same way now, I’ve always been healthy, I was just overweight.”

Serrata currently works in law enforcement and still gets up at 3 a.m. to workout every morning.

“I start off with a two or three mile run. Monday I usually do boxing, and Tuesday through Saturday I just do whatever, a full body workout or high intensity interval training.”

He also drastically changed his eating habits.

“It’s so hard not to eat sweets,” he said. “I don’t care for soft drinks or bread or anything like that, its just candy.”

He said M&Ms are a particular weakness.

“I’ve got eating M&Ms down to a science,” he said. “If you eat one M&M, you have to walk 100 yards to burn it off.”

Serrata said that once people see results, it becomes an addiction.

“I was in a size 50 pants and I went down to a 36, and it took awhile,” he said. “To lose two inches in your waistline you have to lose a good 60 pounds before it actually starts moving.

“Now I’m addicted to M&Ms and the gym,” he laughed.

Follow Eve Guevara on Twitter @EveGuevaraTTG.