Guthrie 12-Year-Old Celebrates Losing 85 Pounds In One Year

A group of about a dozen friends and family members circled the track at Guthrie High School Saturday morning to celebrate Mason Harvey's big accomplishment. In the past year, the 12-year old has lost 85 pounds.

"I was like, you know, I'm tired of this," said Harvey. "I can't deal with this anymore. So I decided to get up off the couch."

That was Harvey's mindset a year ago when he tipped the scales at 206 pounds as a 6th grader. A year later, he is leading his family and friends through 85 laps around the track, one for each pound he has lost. When asked if he was going to complete all 85, he laughed and said the group was splitting up that task.

But at 206 pounds, Harvey had trouble getting around the track just once without losing his breath.

"I had a hard time breathing and I couldn't play as much sports as I didn't get a lot of physical activities in and now I'm just like all over the place," Harvey said.

It was a big change, but it happened with small changes over time. Harvey started by cutting out soda pop, then candy and chips. Next it was only eating one serving instead of three or four plates of food at dinner.

The most important thing was moving. His family was all on board with the change. Mike Harvey, Harvey's dad, even started to hit the gym.

"I'm getting more active than I was. [I] used to come home and just sit at night, watch some TV but now I'm hitting the gym every morning," said Mike Harvey. "[Mason] says small steps, smart choices, equal big changes and that's really it."

Mike Harvey admits his attention was not always on his kids a year ago.

"We were more focused on TV than we were on the kids and unfortunately, even though that's embarrassing for me to admit, that's a fact of life; that's what we were doing," he said.

Not anymore, though. Mike Harvey hits the gym every morning at 4:30 with his oldest son and frequent family activities have brought the Harvey Family closer together.

Harvey said he hoped his story would click with other kids so they get up and start moving.

"Keep active. Don't sit on the couch ‘cause the more you sit on the couch, the lazier you're gonna get and the bigger you're gonna get and it's not gonna help you through life," he said.

As for the wet weather during Saturday morning's walk around the track, Harvey said, "A little bit of bad weather can't kill anything, especially dreams."