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Ashley Evans and Brendan Roche were ecstatic when in early 2023, Roche won an all-inclusive trip to Maui through his job. But, for the Houston couple, the excitement didn’t last long. They knew it would be a “swimsuit” vacation, and with the trip just two months away, they were each at the highest weight they had been in their lives.
“We knew we were nowhere near any shape to be headed to one of the most beautiful places on Earth and to enjoy ourselves properly,” Evans says.
“We went from being excited to being embarrassed,” Roche says.
They both admit that looking good on the beach was their motivation for eating better and adding exercise to their routine. Now that their lives are centered around healthy living, though, they realize that the benefits are so much bigger.
“Getting the trip to Maui motivated us in the beginning, but now the results and the feeling of being healthy is what motivates us every day,” Evans says.
Here’s their story.
The pandemic fueled their weight gain
“We got pretty big during lockdown,” Roche says. “Once the pandemic hit, we were ordering tons of food and staying inside. I worked from home, so it was a very sedentary lifestyle. It was almost a treat-yourself-every-meal kind of scenario.”
They slept and napped a lot and couldn’t find the motivation to focus on their health. When they found out they were going to Maui, they dusted off a bathroom scale and discovered Evans weighed 225 pounds and Roche weighed 260. “We both looked at each other and vowed to start our weight-loss journey together that exact day,” Evans says.
They started with small diet changes
As someone living with type 1 diabetes, Evans knew what she should be eating. “We got back to the basics, versus the unhealthy choices we had been making,” she says. “It’s the way I should have been eating my whole life.”
They threw out all of their junk food and ultraprocessed food and replaced them with healthier options. They stopped drinking alcohol. They focused on whole foods — vegetables, fruit, lean meats and nuts instead of chips, cookies and donuts. When they do get takeout, it’s salads and smoothies.
“We didn’t do any mainstream diets. We just wanted to eat less and eat better,” Roche says.
As a homemaker, Evans says she has time to prepare healthy meals that taste good. So, she revamped foods they already knew they liked. Instead of making Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, she would stuff peppers with steak and cheese and add mushrooms and onions.
She scaled back on red meat and replaced white potatoes with sweet potatoes and white rice with cauliflower rice. “These little, gradual changes were enough for us to still feel like we were eating what we wanted,” she says. “And when you’re making things at home, you’re in control of what you’re putting in.”
She says she doesn’t do a lot of meal prep, but she’ll chop veggies so they’re ready to add to salads and egg dishes. When she cooks, she only prepares enough food for that meal: “I used to cook enough food for a family of six, and we would have leftovers that the two of us would just eat endlessly.”
Roche says the hardest part for him has been snacking — he has a habit of reaching for snacks late at night. He’s switched to healthier options and finds he rarely craves salty snacks now.
Evans says the changes were hard for the first month, but seeing the pounds drop off motivated them. They each lost 40 pounds before the trip by changing their diet — exercise came later. They weren’t starving themselves and they were eating food they enjoyed.
The weight loss boosted their stamina, too. “We were taking a lot of naps when we were heavier,” Evans says. On their trip, they had the energy to wake up at 7 a.m. and still be going to events until 10 or 11 p.m. “I’m proud we got to where we were because I don’t think we would have enjoyed ourselves very much on the trip otherwise,” she says.
They added treadmill walking and strength training to their fitness routine
The 34-year-olds joined Life Time in May 2023, shortly before their trip to Maui. “I was skeptical, because we had joined gyms before and only gone consistently for about a month,” Evans says. “But we had been consistent with our diet for about two months, so we checked it out.”
“That’s what I think took us to the next level,” Roche says. They started slowly — for about a month, they covered a half-mile on side-by-side treadmills and did two or three simple weightlifting exercises.
As they built a fitness habit, they branched out. Roche started a more ambitious weightlifting routine and discovered he loves playing pickleball — he’s on the court seven days a week, sometimes. He enjoys the exercise, and with a work-from-home job as a software sales engineer, he likes the opportunity to connect with other people.
Evans focused on cardio at first and has really started noticing a change in her body since she started lifting weights.
“I do a lot of the machinery around the gym. It’s a total-body workout. My heart’s pumping, and that’s my me time, where I can focus on myself,” she says. “It’s empowering as a woman to be among all these men lifting weights and to know you’re getting stronger and pushing yourself.”
Losing weight led to these other non-scale victories and fitness goals
Evans lost about 70 pounds and weighs 153 pounds now. “I think that I’m where I want to be. When I look in the mirror, I feel good about myself,” she says.
She can touch her toes and do a pushup, and she’s working toward a pull-up. And now that she’s lifting weights, she’s starting to see definition in her muscles, and she’s considering bodybuilding competitions and possibly training for a marathon.
She has also been able to cut the amount of insulin she needs to control her diabetes in half. “My doctor said my numbers are beautiful, and that’s something I hadn’t heard in a number of years. I’m constantly monitoring my blood-glucose levels, and I could see a significant change once I wasn’t eating a ton of carbs. My blood sugars are a lot more manageable and in the normal range,” she says.
Roche lost 50 pounds and now weighs 208. “I want to focus on putting on lean muscle and getting stronger,” he says. He recently reached a goal of bench pressing 225 pounds.
He’s also seen big changes in his energy levels. “When I was at my biggest, I would take naps in the middle of the day. I had zero energy. And I lost the passion for the things I used to love to do. I wouldn’t go fishing anymore. I wouldn’t go out to the gun range. I’d sit and play video games and sleep. Now I sleep better, and I wake up excited about what I’m going to do for the day,” he says. “For me, that was the biggest benefit.”
Their weight-loss tips:
- Keep it simple. “When you go online and try to look up dieting and health and fitness, it’s overwhelming. The goal for us is to keep it as simple as possible. You’ll see big results with small, consistent changes. That’s what really worked for us,” Roche says. “You don’t have to overwhelm yourself with a constricting diet, and you don’t have to go to the gym and kill yourself right out of the gate. You can change one meal for healthier options, do that for a week, and add your second meal and your third meal. In a month or two, you’re going to see big results.”
- Have someone to celebrate with. “Not only did I celebrate when I dropped 10 pounds, but I also got that same level of euphoria and excitement when Ashley hit her goals. Plus, you keep each other accountable,” Roche says.
- Make the healthy option the only option. “I avoid the middle section of the grocery store. The healthiest choices are on the outskirts,” Evans says. Stocking their snack closet with better options also helped. Now, a snack is a handful of nuts instead of a bag of chips.
- Focus on your progress. “It’s eye-opening when I put on an old pair of pants. I don’t want to go down that road again — it would wash away everything we’ve accomplished together,” Evans says.