He lost the weight. Next goal: Skydiving.

Many of us have started diets and exercise regimens, only to give up. Then try, and bail again. And during that start-stop-start cycle, many of us have wished for some inspiration that would force us to make a lasting change.

For Matthew Chicoine of Mocksville, it was surviving getting shot.

It was 2017, and “It happened for the good,” said the 44-year-old father of five. “It helped me change my life.”

He started by giving up drugs.

A lifestyle of dangerous choices and associations had finally caught up with him. But a decision to make a change triggered a chain reaction that eventually led to giving up drugs and cigarettes – and taking up healthy habits. By his side on the journey to better health was a Novant Health care team deeply invested in his success.

His entire outlook changed. And a dream to skydive with his son started to look like it could become reality.

But those big changes didn’t happen right away. For about a year following the shooting, he was understandably traumatized and leaned heavily on unhealthy coping mechanisms.

‘Time to … work on me’

In July 2024, Chicoine gave up a habit he’d had for 30 years. He quit smoking, which he called “probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Tea pouches helped satisfy his oral fixation during the quitting process. “I started noticing my cigarette intake going down,” he said. “Next thing I knew, I didn’t want them anymore.”

That felt good, so he began to want to make other changes. But there was something he had to do first. He refers to it as going into “ghost mode.”

“Throughout my life, I’d let other people dictate my decisions,” Chicoine (pronounced chuh-COIN) said. “In high school, I started smoking because the people I associated with were smokers, and I wanted to feel cool. I always wanted to fit in.”

He knew he had to break ties with the friends who shared the bad habits he wanted to break. “It was time to stay home and work on me,” he said. “I limited my circle to my wife and children and my mother.”

It was a smart move, but it wasn’t all he needed to do. He had replaced cigarettes with food – and mostly junk food.

“Toward the end of 2024,” he said, “I was like: I need to do more. I didn’t want to be 45 and in a casket.” So, he talked to his primary care clinician, Leslie Bentley of Novant Health Davie Medical Associates in Mocksville, and she made a referral.

‘Never really about the weight’

Chicoine made an appointment with Jessica Newman, a certified lifestyle medicine professional who’s also at Novant Health Davie Medical.

Lifestyle medicine takes a holistic approach to health. Practitioners look at patients’ diets, level of exercise, sleep, risky behaviors, social connections and how they manage stress to get a total picture of their health. Since 80% of all chronic diseases these days are related to lifestyle, it’s a common sense approach to preventing, treating and even reversing chronic disease.

Chicoine, who’s a 6-foot-4-inch man, has lost about 100 pounds since he began working with Newman and Danijela “Dani" Stefanovic, a clinical pharmacist at the clinic. That’s a big change, but he did it with baby steps.

“I’ve heard so many times: ‘I was going to the gym five days a week, doing the Keto diet, doing X,Y and Z, and all that crashed and burned,’” said Newman. “That’s because it was too much. It’s not sustainable. You can't turn your life upside down in one day and expect results.”

And Chicoine’s results are impressive. “He says his life has completely changed,” Newman said, “and we see the evidence each time he comes in.”

He goes to the clinic once a month for lifestyle counseling with either Newman or Stefanovic. They’re available to him throughout the month, if he needs additional support.

Like all patients in the lifestyle medicine program, he wanted to lose weight. Yet Newman said, “It’s never really about the weight. It’s what the weight is causing. Once we start digging deeper, someone might share: ‘Well, my knees hurt, and I'm short of breath, so I can’t walk around Disney World with my grandchildren.’”

For Chicoine, his weight was keeping him from skydiving with his eldest son, Barry Smith. He weighed more than the maximum allowed. That was the motivation he needed.

“My son started going to the gym and inspired me to get in shape,” he said. The two decided they’d celebrate Smith’s 21st birthday by jumping out of a plane together with Piedmont Skydiving.

‘I’m going to keep going’

But there were lots of other goals Chicoine reached along the way.

He achieved his first – quitting smoking – before he even came to the clinic. But he’d also put on weight. So, that’s where he started.

At his biggest, Chicoine weighed 354. It took close to nine months of hard work to reach his first goal weight of 250, which is the maximum allowed weight at most skydiving facilities. “When I reached it, I made another goal weight immediately,” he said. “That was 220. And when I reach that, my next goal will be 199. I’m going to keep going until I can jog a lap around the track.”

Some patients know what they need to be eating but have a hard time with motivation. Others are motivated but lack the education component. That was Chicoine’s issue.

“I didn’t know how to go about it until I came to the clinic,” he said. “They helped me realize I was sabotaging myself. I was going to Burger King three times a day. I thought that, if a burger had lettuce and tomato on it, that it was OK. They talked to me about nutrients and recommended different foods to try. Since I have a sweet tooth, they recommended Yasso frozen Greek yogurt bars as a treat after dinner. They’re absolutely delicious.”

Water is Chicoine’s drink of choice now.

He also started reading labels and using apps (like Cronometer, which is free) to track intake and count calories, fat grams, protein and other nutrients. He traded fast food burgers for chicken, turkey and occasionally fish he prepares at home. The former chef makes a turkey meatloaf with packaged stuffing, onions, peppers and mushrooms that’s much tastier – and healthier – than any Whopper.

Boosting your efforts

She prescribed the injectable weight-loss drug Zepbound. That drug “and similar medications aren’t a substitute for changing your lifestyle,” Stefanovic said. “Zepbound helped Matthew, but he did the work. He’s on a low dose. We have patients on the maximum dose who aren’t losing weight because they haven’t changed their lifestyle.”

What Zepbound has primarily done is help with portion-control. Chicoine may have half a sandwich for lunch now instead of two sandwiches.

After seven months on Zepbound, Newman suggested NeuroFlow, a therapy app used by many Novant Health clinics. Chicoine was an ideal candidate. “He was hungry for that tough, internal work,” Newman said. “He was already listening to motivational podcasts on his own. This was another asset to add.”

Chicoine didn’t need to be convinced. “I love education,” he said. “If you learn something in a day, it's not a wasted day. All my life, I've dealt with depression and anxiety, and then after I was shot, with PTSD. The more I can learn about myself the better. ​NeuroFlow helped teach me how my clock ticks.”

Newman and Stefanovic see this a lot: Once a patient makes these changes, it opens up a desire to improve other aspects of their life. “Taking control of your health is a gateway to transforming your entire life,” Newman said.

Part of that transformation is in reframing your thinking – something Chicoine said Newman helped him do. He used to get on the scale and get discouraged if the number wasn’t lower than it was yesterday.

But Newman would remind him of all he’d done. “I would say, ‘Matthew, you completely cut out fast food. You stopped drinking sodas. You’ve been to the gym three times a week since I last saw you.’ Sometimes, you need to hold a mirror up to the patient to show them how far they’ve come.”

Chicoine appreciated the reminder. “She always looks at the positive,” he said of Newman. “She helped me realize the scale doesn't measure how much muscle I've gained. So now, I only get on the scale once in a while.”

He’s found a better gauge of how well he’s doing are “all the holes I have to keep putting in my belt – or the new jeans I’ve had to buy because I’ve gone down three sizes. I went from a 46-inch waist to a 40-inch waist.”

He also took part in a pilot through the Novant Health physical therapy department, which Newman said is ideal for people who haven’t done much, or any, exercise before.

A total transformation

Chicoine celebrates all the things – big and small – he can do now that weren’t possible before. It’s not just that he’s hiking in the mountains most weekends. “I can walk up a flight of stairs without feeling like I’m about to die,” he said.

He’s not an isolated case.

“Matthew is just one of many success stories we’ve been honored to witness,” Newman said. There are currently over 150 patients in the program — each with their own success stories. “When somebody starts to get healthier, their entire life changes,” Newman said. “Sometimes, they make big changes. They get out of a job they’ve hated. They renew relationships that had fallen by the wayside.”

She and Stefanovic emphasize that they’re not doing the work. The patient is.

“He’s in the driver's seat,” Newman said. “He took the information, made the changes and he completely owns his transformation. We’re just honored to be along for the ride.”