14 DAY TRIAL // A 33-year-old man from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, lost so much weight on a training camp in Thailand that border guards refused to let him board his flight home because he was unrecognizable.
Ross Connor spent one year at a Muay Thai kick boxing camp in Phuket and slimmed down from 21 stones (133 kg) to 13 stones (82.5 kg) during the training period, so when he wanted to return home he was no longer looking like when he had entered the country.
Airport officials in Thailand detained Connor for questioning because they suspected he wasn't the same person that appeared in his official photos they had taken 12 months earlier.
Luckily for him, he had some photos documenting his fitness regime on his iPod and managed to convince officers that he wasn't lying after he showed them the pictures.
“It was a worrying moment,” the man said. “I knew I’d lost a lot of weight, but I never expected they wouldn’t let me on the plane. But when they showed me the image taken on my arrival, even I had trouble recognising myself.”
According to Daily Mail, Ross decided to join the kick boxing camp in March last year after he began suffering breathing problems and having trouble walking due to his unhealthy diet which contained daily takeaways.
He badly wanted to lose weight and paid £6,000 ($10,000 or €7,370) upfront to enroll at the boxing gym on the island paradise of Phuket, and he spent the next 12 months doing daily exercises to achieve his goal. He worked out four hours a day in the sweltering heat and humidity of the island and managed to shed an impressive eight stone (50 kg).
“I’d watch my idols boxing, and I thought to myself, if they can lose weight at a boxing camp before a fight - then so can I,” he said. “I’d comfort eaten my way to obesity in such a short time and doctors told me if I carried on I wasn’t going to see 40. I thought I was in control, but before I knew it I was 21 stone [133 kg] and eating my way to an early grave.”
He confessed that during his stay in Thailand he basically lived in the gym, and, although he didn't have a strict diet, his training program was 24/7, which helped him not only lose weight but also build a nice body.
After realizing their mistake, border guards congratulated Connor and sent him on his way.