Actor Quintin Aaron’s role as football player Michael Oher in “The Blindside” earned him a lot of notice for his massive size. However, Aaron’s weight ballooned to an all-time high of 575lbs in 2021, which was far from impressive. It wasn’t long before Quinton realized he was in trouble. “Food was my drug. I was eating when I wasn’t even hungry,” he told “The Recovery Vow” podcast in September. “Just going out and buying food and sitting in my car in the parking lot, eating it and crying and not knowing why. I’m like, ‘Why do I feel this way?’”

Aaron’s health soon began to fail, culminating in a near-death experience that he characterized as a “come-to-Jesus kind of moment” to Fox News. Aaron described an incident in 2021 when he was sitting on a wall at the waterfront in Mandeville, Louisiana. “There’s one day I’m sitting there on the wall, and I’m just listening to the water vibe, and then I wake up underwater. So I literally passed out, fell off the wall, and it was like a 12-foot drop, but the water was only three feet deep. I didn’t know that at the time. Well, thank God it was three feet deep, because I can’t swim,” he recalled of the terrifying moment. He described waking up under the water with his back in pain. “But while I’m underwater, I hear this voice say, ‘Stand up.’ And so, I stand, like I start trying to get to my feet. The water is pushing me into the rocks, and I’m kinda like hitting my head up against something. I don’t know what it was, but I can’t see, because the water’s dirty brown.”

Quinton was able to get himself up eventually and was taken to a hospital. He learned later he might have passed out after experiencing diabetic ketoacidosis, which is caused by extremely high blood sugar levels. He had to spend a few weeks in the hospital and felt God was calling on him to make a change. He cut out sugar, incorporated intermittent fasting, and stopped overeating. Aaron recently took to Instagram to announce he had lost 200lbs. He said he hopes to lose another 55lbs. He is also hoping that his new healthy lifestyle will help him reverse some of the health challenges he’s experienced, including being diagnosed with congestive heart failure at 35. “I’m gonna get rid of that diabetes, I’m gonna get rid of that congestive heart failure — those are reversible,” he said. “If you tell me something’s impossible, I’ll show you it’s possible.”