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LifeChoices
Lauren von Foregger
Every morning,
Jarred Couch looks
at his face in the
mirror and reminds
himself that he is
good enough.
“I tell myself that I am good, I am loved.
That I am in a place where I don’t need to lose
any more weight, even though sometimes it’s
hard for me to accept that I am skinny enough.”
Jarred heads to the gym most mornings,
where he spends his early hours lifting weights
and participating in group classes. He says this
helps him feel his best, and he walks out of the
gym into the morning sunlight feeling
rejuvenated and alive.
When Jarred began attending Mississippi
College in Clinton in 2018, he weighed 412
pounds. Today, he weighs 248.
At 6’6”, the 22-year-old Clintonian is aware
of his large presence, but during the second
semester of his junior year, he got tired of living
life needing to order special clothes, worrying
about how he would fit into desks in his
classrooms, and generally feeling uncomfortable.
“I just woke up one day and decided to
commit to living differently,” he says. “It’s been
really hard. It takes a lot of discipline, but it’s
worth it. I feel so much better. I can take a pair
of my old jeans and stand with both legs in
one side now. It’s crazy!”
Jarred went from a 3-4 XL size shirt and a
size 64 jeans to a size medium shirt and a size
34 jeans. He lost the bulk of his weight in
about a six-month time span.
Jarred has been overweight his entire life
and can remember feeling like his relationship
with food was unhealthy. “When I first started
driving, I would sneak to Little Caesar’s and
buy and eat two pizzas before going home,” he
says. “I knew something wasn’t right, but I
couldn’t stop. I know now that I was using food
to cope with depression, unhealed childhood
trauma and the day-to-day struggles of life.”
Hometown CLINTON • 45