Photo by Robert A. DeFrank Jeremiah Morgan prepares to race Saturday morning. He has shed 200 pounds.

WHEELING – Jeremiah Morgan of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, is marking an achievement with his participation in Ogden Newspapers Wellness Weekend presented by WVU Medicine, having shed 200 pounds.

He tackled the Ultra Urban Challenge presented by Bordas & Bordas. That included the Ogden Newspapers Half Marathon Classic Saturday, and Sunday’s Heritage Trail Bicycle Tour and Tough As Nails Urban Challenge presented by The Health Plan.

“Four years ago, I went through a pretty rough divorce and my life fell apart. I started drinking heavily,” he said.

He would eventually get sober by 2019, but by then had gained weight, reaching about 400 pounds.

“December 27 of 2021, I decided that enough was enough. It was time to change. I went to war with myself, started engaging with my mind and my physical activity and my diet,” he said.

One major change he credits for his success is joining a supportive community.

“I was able to gain traction with a group of guys and we developed a support group, a team,” he said.

The group is named Morris Mindset, after founder Jay Morris, who will be cheering Morgan on along with other members of the group. Morgan will be joined by his half-brother, Gary Kuehn, who will run and ride bicycles with him.

Morgan tried different dietary changes from keto – which his system did not tolerate – and eventually settled on a predominantly vegan diet. Morgan said he also increased his activities whenever possible.

“When I first started, I couldn’t walk 1,000 steps per day,” he said, adding he made steady gains.

“Walmart’s only three miles from my apartment. I would walk to Walmart, fill my backpack with groceries and walk my groceries back to my apartment,” he said. He would take the stairs to his eighth-floor apartment rather than the elevator.

Morgan said there were other milestones such as hiking a mountain near his home in September of 2022.

“I walked 26 miles that day,” he said.

Morgan, 44, said undertaking marathons was a mark of achievement.

“I love running. When I first started running it was so intensely hard. I couldn’t even run two minutes at a time,” he said.

“Now here I am. I’m below 200 pounds. I ran the Pittsburgh Marathon at the beginning of the month, and I ran a 5K with my daughter (Mackenzie Morgan) last weekend,” he said. “I hit my weight loss goal of October of 2022, and that’s when I said I’m going to run a marathon, and then I ran a marathon May 7 in Pittsburgh.”

He said has undertaken challenges he would not have believed himself capable of.

“I did it, and it was crazy. Such an experience,” he said.

His personal goal is to complete the half-marathon in about 2 hours and 15 minutes. At the conclusion of the race, his time was one hour and 59 minutes.

Morgan also recounted the many health benefits.

“I had all these medical conditions when I was 400 pounds,” he said.

Morgan is also active on TikTok, hoping to inspire change in others who need it.

“I’m trying to do this for the guy who’s sitting on his couch right now, and he’s 400 pounds and he’s stuck in his position in life and he doesn’t hear a pathway forward,” he said.

Videos of Morgan including his weight loss progress and participation in marathons can be found on j_mos_life as well as the morris_mindset TikTok page. He said the reactions have been encouraging.

“It’s the thing that has been propelling me and motivating me to go forward,” he said.

“It’s been a long journey, and I’m very appreciative of everybody who’s supporting.”