"Was it easy? No, it was really hard. But it's a commitment you have to make every day."

A local resident is encouraging others in achieving their personal goals after losing more than 250 lbs.

Facing the end of a long-term relationship in February 2018, Morden resident Derick Ferris made it his mission to become healthy. He estimates at his heaviest he was over 500 lbs. But for the past two years, he's made gradual changes to his diet and taken steps to design an active lifestyle. He explains it started small with walking his dog and buying a fitness tracker.

"Very clean eating, a lot of vegetables and then once the weight started to drop I started walking more, got a gym membership, started doing yoga at home," he explains.

He's since reached and maintained his goal weight of 250 lbs and continues to build muscle. "When you grow up heavy you're always trying to make a change, but it doesn't seem to work. And then when it does it seems surreal."

While never easy, he says the small victories created momentum, "it snowballs and makes you want to keep going and do more."

"Some days you lose, some days you win," Ferris says. "You just have to win most days with what you're doing with your activity level and your diet."

Beyond just fitness goals, Ferris hopes his story encourages anyone with a dream or vision for their life.

"If you want to make a change, it doesn't start Monday morning or next week, it's today and every day," Ferris says. "Whenever I started slipping and making excuses not to walk my dogs or go to the gym I'd say, "no excuses," because you have today, you don't have tomorrow... it's what you do right now that matters."

However, now he's hoping to take the final steps in his weight loss journey by receiving a surgery to take care of some loose skin. Unfortunately, the procedure is not covered under Manitoba health. With the encouragement of friends and family, they're planning a fundraising event to help cover the costs.

Ferris says he's been blown away by the support. To learn more call 204-361-6703.

In the end, he encourages anyone on a weight-loss journey to never give up. "And it doesn't have to be work, it can be fun... find something you like that works."