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Many of you know Tyram from his numerous appearances at Southtown Arcade for the KOFXIII Ranbats and the many streams and events that have gone down at RAMnation each Friday over the past many years. This is his success story as to how he lost 100 pounds in less than a year. He hopes his story inspires other gamers out there who are looking to achieve their goals in life. Major thanks to Jenkins Mitchell of Drom's Comics for writing this up and shedding light on this amazing story! - Haunts

Click for Full SizeCheesecake, Evo, and a Bike: How This NorCal Player Lost 100 Pounds in Less Than a Year

I recently had the opportunity to talk to Fairfield, California’s Tyler “Tyram” Ramil, founder of Ramnation, about his amazing weight loss journey he began in August of last year. After Evolution 2011, Tyram watched a replay video of “The Cheesecake Story” and saw himself in a new light. The opening shot of the video shows a side view of a 300-plus pound Tyram sitting down and looking at his phone. “I looked at myself in that video and I saw that I was extremely huge. Like, I looked very bad, and I thought to myself, ‘You know what? I need to change this…’ I went back and looked at previous photos of myself,” said Tyram. He saw things in his appearance that he disliked, and decided to do something to lose the excess weight he saw in himself.

Tyram set a goal for himself to get his weight from 306 pounds down to 200 pounds by Evolution 2012. He dieted in the past, but always ended up getting discouraged and giving up when his weight loss would hit a plateau. This time would be different, and with his diet of choice, the Atkins Diet, and the experience of failed weight loss attempts behind him, ‘Ram understood that diet and exercise might not be enough: he needed to provide incentives for himself.

Photo Taken during EVO2011Tyram posted his goals and progress on his Facebook page, and the fighting game community as a whole liked what he had to say and showed him their support. On the fourth week of the new diet and exercise regimen he started recording weekly weigh-ins and posted them on YouTube to show his gradual progress, and again the community chimed-in and showed Tyler their support with a slew of encouraging comments.

About three or four months into his journey, Tyram contacted Haunts and asked if an article could be put on the front page of IPLAYWINNER once he reached the 200 lb range, and Haunts agreed. Shortly after that, Paul “Koogy” Kugler, the owner of BrokenTier agreed to show his company’s support by providing shirts to take the “after” photos in. ‘Ram was not only getting individual FGC member’s support, but now he had established companies providing the incentives he knew he would need to reach his goal.

Tyram Today -- Like a Boss!The keys to Tyler’s success are really pretty simple. He started by buying a small exercise bike that he would ride for one hour per night on weekdays, and eight hours a day on Saturday. He also changed his diet, and made sure to not over-eat, but the hard part was motivation. He had to give up his tournament life to stay home and ride his small exercise bike all day while his friends went out to have a good time. Tyram knew from the beginning that he would have to make sacrifices, and for him the biggest sacrifice he had to make was weekend fighting game tournaments. In his words:

“I could go to tournaments but, at the same time it would affect my weight loss, so I basically took myself out of the… fighting game community for my ability to lose more weight and become more healthy. And that’s just something that, if people want to dedicate their lives or dedicate a portion of their lives to getting healthy again you have to make sacrifices, and my sacrifice was something that I loved very much and still love now, is the fighting game community. They’ve done so much for me and supported me throughout so many things in my life, not just the weight loss… It’s been like a second family to me, you know? To have to sacrifice that for almost a year, it hurt but, at the same time it was a sacrifice that really needed to be made if I really wanted the results that I got.”

“I just hope that people look at my story and feel inspiration… (I) want to see people make changes in their lives…” said Tyler. He stressed that the reason he wanted to share his story with people was to show overweight gamers that they can lose weight and live healthier lives.

If anybody would like to meet him, Tyram will be at Evolution 2012, and will be spending most of his time around the BrokenTier booth and the King of Fighters XIII area. He is interested in hearing people’s opinions and strategies on losing weight, and is open to answering more in-depth questions about his weight-loss success. At the time of our interview Tyram weighed 206.2 lbs, putting him very near his goal to weigh 200 lbs before Evolution 2012.

View Tyler’s before and after photos at his Photobucket album.

-Jenkins “jinxmitchell” Mitchell (The Dromstruction guy)