14 DAY TRIAL // “Pawn Stars” star Corey Harrison is half the man he used to be: in 2010, when he weighed 402 pounds (182.3 kg) and was put on preventive diabetes medication, he got so spooked about his health that he went and got lap band surgery. Years later, he’s happy to look back on his journey and proclaim himself a changed man.
Harrison and Austin “Chumlee” Russell can be seen on Pawnography, their new show, looking thinner, healthier, and happier than ever before. They both lost a lot of the extra weight they’d been carrying by changing the way they ate and leading more active lives.
Harrison says that 2010 visit to the doctor was the wake-up call he needed: the moment he heard he was at a risk of developing diabetes because he was overweight, he got so scared that he “literally” went straight to the lap band center to get the surgery right after he left the doctor’s office.
In a new interview with People magazine, he points out that the results were immediate: he lost 50 pounds (22.6 kg) in the first weeks after surgery and then 100 pounds (45.3 Kg) more in the following year. The procedure has changed his life completely because it has taught him to take better care of his body.
“I could never go back to weighing as much as I did,” he tells the celebrity publication. “It made me realize what I ate, how I ate and what I did to myself. It was a WOW moment.”
The experience has also taught him to love to work out, which he never even imagined possible before.
“I'm actually excited to go to the gym now. I box 12 rounds a day five days a week. When I was a teenager I loved snowboarding, but in my 20s I was too big to strap my feet in the boards. Being able to finally touch my toes made me realize I could snowboard again, so I went out and got new gear immediately,” he explains.
Corey is now at 210 pounds (95.2 kg) and he is proud when people either don’t recognize him in the street or they do but they tell him he looks like “that guy from Pawn Stars” only thinner and “better looking.”
As the photo above can confirm (it’s a before and after comparison), it’s not difficult to see why not even loyal fans of the show could easily recognize Corey in a crowd.