A man ditched a Tinder flame and got the ultimate revenge after she taunted his weight – by losing 117lbs.
Brody Balinski, 29, tipped the scales at 271lbs at his heaviest and was struggling to squeeze into a size 42 waist.
But when a Tinder date made a remark about his BMI in March 2020 it was the motivation he needed to beat the bulge – and he would THANK her if he met her again.
Brody had been trying to give his partner some fitness motivation when she allegedly replied: “That means a lot coming from someone with a 34 BMI”.
He says the comment “stung like a dagger through the heart” so he cut contact and lost 117lbs in just 10 months to develop a ripped physique.
Brody has started packing on muscle and now weighs 180lbs, has a chiseled jawline, a six pack and can slip into a size 32 waist.
He also says he’s inundated with attention from women and has the girlfriend of his dreams who is the type of woman he “would have always wanted to see”.
Brody, a tech consultant, from Miami, Florida, US, said: “We’re just exchanging text messages, keeping it very casual. It’s a couple hours into the work day, like 11am.
“I text her and she says that she’s still in bed, and my response was ‘OK – time to get up and get motivated!’
“And her response to me was ‘that means a lot coming from someone with a 34 BMI’.
“I don’t know why that [comment] hit. I was just like ‘I have to make a change as a result of this’.”
He never replied to the message, and has had no further contact since.
He started a strict Keto diet in April 2020 – a high fat, moderate protein, low carbohydrate diet.
“I was putting butter in my coffee in the morning,” he said.
“I was cooking bacon for breakfast and then I would save the bacon grease from the tray and use it like a dressing on salads.
“Every single day of that diet when I would get sugar cravings or when I would pass the snack aisle in the grocery store, I just thought of that message on replay.
“How deep it hurt.”
Brody swapped two takeaways a night for chicken breast with salad.
After losing the weight, he started walking and then running, which escalated to four miles a morning.
By February 2021, 10 months later, Brody had lost 117 pounds, weighed 154lbs and could slip into a size 28.
“It was quite the journey, but it didn’t even like feel that difficult to be honest,” he said.
“There was a lot of motivation behind it.”
Brody says he has greater confidence and a better sense of self-worth.
“Being heavy felt like I had this secret that I was almost able to conceal to some degree with being well presentable and friendly with people,” he said.
Now he has lost weight, he said: “People are just nicer, more welcoming, more friendly. In the context of a business they’re more willing to help.”
Brody says his new physique has also enabled him to “flirt” in a way he had never been able to previously.
“The default self-perception I had was that most women found me disgusting,” he said.
“And so I kind of based all my interactions on that assumption that there wasn’t much flirtation coming from my end of things because it was just an assumption that ‘OK, this person is not going to be interested in me at all’.”
Now Brody says he’s confident in flirting.
He said: “There’s an element of higher self confidence, or self esteem. There’s a game to flirting, a little back and forth.
“And I can kind of play that game a little more, just because of that self confidence.”
Now, Brody has a new girlfriend who he has been seeing for a couple of months.
“She’s very athletic and was probably out of my reach those years ago”, he said.
He said he never heard from the cruel commenter.
“If I was going to talk to her, I would actually say thank you to her now,” he said.
“What she said to me was exactly what I needed to hear.”
Diet before:
- Breakfast – A couple of slices of bread, a muffin and a pastry
- Lunch – Large pizza/Indian takeaway
- Dinner – Two takeaways: pizza, Indian food, pancake stacks, two eggs, sausages, hash brown and toast
- Snacks – Biscotti, breakfast biscuits, chips, candy, Nature Valley bars
- Drinks – 12 pack of beer
Diet after:
- Breakfast – Oatmeal with sugar free sweetener, high-protein low fat yogurt
- Lunch – Bowl of rice, beans, chicken breast, guacamole
- Dinner – 6 Oz chicken breast, 300g of mixed vegetables including brussel sprouts, red and yellow peppers and mushrooms, 170g broccoli, 144g of mixed fruit: strawberries, mangoes and blueberries
- Snacks – Protein shake, 114g of mixed fruit: strawberries, mango and blueberries
- Drinks – Sparkling water
Exercise regime:
One – one-and-a-half hours of exercise every day. Mon, Weds, Fri: Upper body including biceps, triceps and chest. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday: Lower body including legs. Sunday is pure cardio to burn as many calories as possible.
