Sal Reedus once weighed 725 pounds. Today the Columbus native is telling the story of how he lost hundreds of pounds, documenting the journey on TikTok along the way and using the platform to hold himself accountable as his following grew into the hundreds of thousands.
Reedus recently discussed the moment that changed his life on the Columbus in Color podcast, a new interview series launched in August 2026 by The Columbus Dispatch reporter Amani Bayo to spotlight local voices shaping the city. According to Dexerto, Reedus reached his peak weight of 725 pounds in 2024 before being hospitalized with diabetic ketoacidosis and congestive heart failure. Doctors warned that his organs were failing, and a cousin pleaded with him at his bedside: “I need you, you can't die.”
A Hospital Bed Turning Point
That hospitalization became the wake-up call that reshaped Reedus's life. Rather than undergo bariatric surgery, he chose a non-surgical path built on dietary changes, daily walking, and structured exercise routines, per Dexerto's reporting. Within his first year, that approach helped him shed nearly 200 pounds.
Reedus built his following under the TikTok handle @journeywithsal, where he now has more than 800,000 followers, according to Famous Birthdays. Individual daily vlogs, including one showing him getting dressed for Thanksgiving, have racked up more than 27 million views on their own. His story also reached beyond his own platform when fitness creator Will Tennyson featured him in a YouTube video titled “I Tried His 725lbs Weight Loss Routine,” which has drawn more than 5.7 million views.
Roots in Columbus Sports
Long before his health crisis, Reedus was a student-athlete in Columbus, playing football for Bishop Hartley High School, according to MaxPreps records. That local athletic background has become part of how his followers understand his transformation — a return, in some ways, to a more active version of himself.
Reedus's public accountability model lines up with what researchers say helps people sustain health changes over time. Franklin County Public Health has reported that social isolation raises the risk of heart disease and early mortality, while public accountability and community support systems can help people maintain health routines. Documenting his progress for hundreds of thousands of viewers appears to have functioned as exactly that kind of support system.
A Local and Statewide Health Backdrop
Reedus's journey unfolds against a broader public health picture in central Ohio. Data Commons figures from 2022 show that roughly 36.1% of adult residents in Franklin County were categorized as obese. Statewide, the picture is similarly stark: CDC data reported by WHIO TV in November 2025 found Ohio ranks among the top states in the nation for adult obesity, with a statewide prevalence nearing 38%.
The medical conditions Reedus faced at his peak weight carry serious clinical weight of their own. County Health Rankings & Roadmaps notes that diabetic ketoacidosis is a severe, life-threatening metabolic condition caused by an insulin shortage, and that severe obesity significantly raises the risk of heart failure and chronic inflammation — the same combination of diagnoses that landed Reedus in the hospital in 2024.
What Reedus's long-term maintenance plan looks like, and whether any future medical interventions factor into his approach, remains unaddressed in his public account so far. For now, his story stands as one Columbus man's very public accounting of a crisis he says nearly killed him — and the hundreds of pounds and hundreds of thousands of followers that came after.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)
