How Ivan Lendl Motivated Mississippi Man to Lose Over 150 Pounds

— -- Matt Howell thought he would become a professional tennis player until he watched his career aspiration fall short while in college.

Once freed from the dietary and training rigors of collegiate tennis life, Howell, now a 39-year-old high school teacher in Grenada, Mississippi, let himself go.

“I wanted to live a little and I lived a lot until I was 37 years old,” Howell told ABC News. “I got big really fast and then just maintained that weight for the next 15 or 20 years.”

Howell eventually picked up tennis again, along with the extra pounds that left him weighing around 320 pounds. When he was at that weight, in 2014, Howell's wife, Sabrina, gave him as a birthday present the chance to play tennis with the likes of Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe at a competitive tennis circuit match in Nasvhille.

“After we played, Ivan said to me, ‘You would have been a really good tennis player if you weren’t so big,’” Howell recalled. “At first I was so angry and then later on I realized he was really paying me a compliment.”

“I just had that initial shock when someone tells you the truth and you don’t want to hear it,” he said.

Lendl’s remark combined with a physical at which he learned he had "everything you could possibly imagine that would lead to an early death" pushed Howell to make a change.

In April 2014, Howell says he underwent a vertical sleeve gastrectomy, a surgery that leaves you with a stomach about the size of a banana, according to the NIH. One month after the surgery, while out to dinner with friends, Howell got the final motivation he says he needed to lose the weight on his own and for good.

“I was sitting at dinner and two of my friends were talking about doing an obstacle course and they didn’t even think to include me,” Howell said. “That hammered it home.”

“I said to myself, ‘Come hell or high water you will not go back to that life. We are done.’”

Howell, the married father of two daughters, ages 4 and 3, worked with a friend who is both a triathlete and a doctor to plan a diet that would fuel his body.

“It’s just good food and the right amounts of vegetables and proteins and oils,” Howell said of his 1,400 to 1,700 calorie daily diet that typically includes two protein shakes and a meal balance of 80 percent vegetables and 20 percent protein.

The former collegiate athlete, and tennis director at his local country club, who now weighs 164 pounds, also introduced activity back into his life in the form of walking and then jogging and weightlifting.

“Once I started becoming more active on a regular basis, that’s when I noticed the change in what my body was craving,” Howell said. “Meats made me feel heavy and my body responded to a vegetable-heavy diet.”

“I think a big thing too was that I did not know portion control and had no idea what a true portion is,” he said. “That takes an adjustment period to figure out.”

Now Howell, the same guy who was once excluded by his active friends, is an obstacle course-junkie who has already completed one race and has three more in the books. He does 100 push-ups daily, runs at least five times per week and hits the gym at least four times per week.

The 5'9" Howell went from a 3XL shirt to a small or medium, a 50" waist in pants to a 30" and dropped one shoe size.

Howell says what worked for him was to find the “switch” in his life, the motivating factor that pushed him to reinvent his lifestyle.

“Whatever makes you make the change is the most important thing and that takes a lot of self-reflection,” Howell said. “For me, I see it in my kids’ faces. I see it in my wife’s face.”

“When my little girl comes down the stairs and says, ‘I love you dad,’ and hugs me, that just throws me out the door to go for my run or to the gym,” he said.

Howell was urged by his high school students – whom he says do a double-take when they see him in the hallway – to post his story on Reddit. He has already received, and responded to, hundreds of comments from inspired readers since posting it Tuesday.

“You have to believe you can do it, and you can do it,” Howell said.