A Monroe man's weight loss journey has been a marathon, but now he feels like a winner.

Brendan McKeon, 41, broke his leg in 2016.

"Shattered the femur, and I always say when they put Humpty Dumpty back together again we lost about five-eighths of an inch of my leg. I have a rod that's in there holding everything together with pins," said McKeon.

He now wears shoes that make his legs the same length. McKeon had nurses working with him to start walking again. He was supposed to be a groomsman at a friend's upcoming wedding.

"Otherwise the joke was they were going to be pushing me down in a wheelchair, and that did not sit well with me," said McKeon.

By 2019, the funeral director at Spears Miller Funeral Home in Fairfield says he had ballooned to 263 pounds. Doctors were concerned about his health.

He was a self-proclaimed couch potato. "I had to look inside myself to realize that I was going to be in the casket not too long after if I didn't change," said McKeon.

McKeon started exercising and by 2021 ran in the Sprint for Monroe. When the holidays rolled around later that year, he was under 200 pounds. Now, he's completed the grueling "Dopey Challenge" at Disney in Florida.

"It's a 5K on Thursday, 10K on Friday, half-marathon on Saturday and a full marathon on Sunday," said McKeon.

It seems McKeon is now inspiring others to get healthy, too.

"I have friends that now are training for 5K's and they say because of you," said McKeon.

McKeon's next event is this Sunday in New Haven - The Sham Rock and Roll 5K.