Ohio Man Loses Nearly 200 Pounds in Ten Months to Ride Roller Coaster

An Ohio man reached his goal of riding roller coasters again after he thought he never could because of his weight.

Because Jared Ream initially weighed in around 430 pounds, he could not fit in the seats to ride a roller coaster. But then he got the motivation he needed to stick to a weight loss plan that enabled him to lose nearly 200 pounds in ten months, WKRC reported.

Ream, a 35-year-old from Dayton, Ohio, recently wrote a first-person essay for Dayton.com about his experience before, during, and after his weight loss journey to ride a roller coaster coming soon to his local amusement park in Kings Island in Mason, Ohio.

Before he embarked on his weight loss journey, Ream struggled to enjoy what he loved because he could not fit in the seats.

“As any big and/or tall roller coaster enthusiast will tell you, nothing is worse than the roller coaster ‘Walk of Shame,’” Ream explained in his essay. “That’s the moment when you are asked to get off a roller coaster because the restraint cannot properly close around you because of your size. It’s painful, and I know all too well how it feels.”

But in August 2019, everything changed for Ream when he heard that Kings Island was adding to its ranks a coaster called Orion, a 300-foot tall Giga coaster created by Ream’s favorite coaster manufacturer, B&M.

“This was it. This was the motivation I needed,” Ream wrote. “I had always made a promise to myself that if Kings Island ever built a B&M Giga, that I would have to ride it, no matter what it took for me to do so … I decided the day of the announcement that I would lose all the weight and ride it on opening day.”

Since the day of the announcement, he limited his diet, exercised in his garage, practiced intermittent fasting, and got eight to ten hours of sleep per night. Ream lost 190 pounds in 321 days.

He was invited to attend Orion’s media event on July 1, the day before opening day. At that time, he weighed in around 240 pounds.

He also rode his 300th coaster that day.

“You couldn’t see it because of my mask, but I had the biggest smile on my face,” Ream wrote. “I was so happy and excited that I forgot to look around and enjoy the view. We were already at the top and began to drop down that amazing first drop. The rest flew by.”

“Since I was alone in my socially distanced row, I just let my arms and legs fly wherever the coaster told them they had to go,” he continued.