When Chris Liotta returned to Elon for the fall semester of his sophomore year in 2009, his friends barely recognized him.

Having kept to himself for most of the summer, people from school didn't know that while Liotta was home in Chantilly, Va., he was spending every day of summer break trying to put his 285-pound body back into shape. Three months and 70 pounds later, Liotta had done more than change his body. He had taken control of looming health risks and, on the way to eventually being 100 pounds lighter, had gained more confidence than ever before.

Though Liotta, now a senior, struggled most of his life with maintaining a healthy weight, he played soccer for a traveling team until he was 18 years old. He began his freshman year at Elon weighing 260 pounds, which was more than the average 5-foot-10-inch soccer player, but he was still able to play the sport competitively.

"Playing at that weight is not easy," Liotta said. "Growing up, I was always overweight. No particular reason. I just ate too much."

Despite the challenges that obesity had presented to Liotta as an athlete, he did everything he wanted to do growing up. He played pickup basketball with his friends. He played in soccer tournaments in two foreign countries. He always had the endurance to keep up with other players during games.

"I wouldn't say I was fine with being overweight, but everyone just told me to be happy with who I was," Liotta said. "I didn't see any reason to change at that point."

He liked to lounge, and once he got to college, Liotta stopped playing soccer.

"If I hadn't been playing soccer those 12 years, God knows what my weight would have been at that point," he said. "When I decided not to continue playing, pretty much all hell broke loose."

Nicki Cartwright, who lived across the hall from Liotta when they were freshmen, said she remembered him being quite sedentary that year.

"Chris was known on the hall as the guy with all the movies," Cartwright said. "And he had loads. I always saw him in the same spot of his couch watching TV, doing homework or playing video games."

Liotta's wakeup call came at the end of his freshman year. He hadn't stepped on a scale since he started college. Out of curiosity one day, decided to check his weight. The display read 280 pounds.

"That was when it kind of hit me," Liotta said. "Over the past few years, my weight had gone up 20 pounds a year. I realized if I kept up the trend, I would be at 300 by that time the next year."

Liotta had a couple of friends at home who planned on spending the summer working out and building muscle. He asked if he could join, and Liotta soon became acquainted with an exercise routine that demanded his effort seven days a week.

"The main thing that I wanted for Chris was the opportunity for him to be able to go out and do more activities with our friends, instead of wasting time indoors," said Josh Welt, one of the friends Liotta worked out with that summer.

And the first day was grueling. His two workout partners, including Welt, who played college tennis, had already finished running the loop around the neighborhood 15 minutes before Liotta made it to the end. They waited for him with a glass of water. Liotta got a short rest, and the three went inside and began lifting weights in Welt's home gym.

"The first day was like, throat burning, chest heaving — it was painful," he said.

A few days later, when his friends were ready to start the workout, Liotta tried to get out of it.

"My friend came and said, 'Are you ready to go?' I told them I didn't know if I was going because I was refereeing soccer that day," he said.

Not taking "no" for an answer, Liotta's two friends banged on his window until he came out.

"I just kept going," Liotta said. "After about the first week, running wasn't nearly as bad, but I still wasn't able to keep up with them. It was kind of like I had to shake the rust off."

To keep from trailing behind the other two, Liotta began to run his own route. He fell into a groove, and instead of wasting hours of his day watching television and movies, committed his time to exercising vigorously.

"I would do a 2-3 mile run, then later in the day, if I felt like going again, I would," Liotta said. "Lifting was always after the first run. We did two back-to-back days of lifting with different muscle sets. Two days on, one day off. That's how it went for the whole summer."

Within the first week, Liotta had dropped 10 pounds. The next week, he dropped more weight.

"I was dropping 10 pounds, 10 pounds, 10 pounds," Liotta said. "For the first two months, I honestly didn't feel like I had changed, appearance-wise. I knew the number was changing, but looking in the mirror, I didn't feel like I had done anything — which was frustrating."

Even though he couldn't see it, people around him had started noticing.

"A lot of people had been telling me I was looking good, but for some reason, I didn't let it register with me," Liotta said. "I thought if I got complacent, I'd probably stop or lose the hard work I had been doing. So I didn't let it sink in with me until later on."

Even while on vacation in the mountains of Wyoming for two weeks, Liotta managed to lose five pounds — without any workout equipment at all. That, he said, made him prouder than anything else he achieved that summer.

"Losing five pounds on vacation, with no access to equipment — that was probably the biggest accomplishment for me that summer, instead of the 60 pounds or 70 pounds," Liotta said. "You just have to want to do it."

When Liotta arrived back at Elon, he weighed 215 pounds. During the course of the fall semester, he lost 30 more pounds, putting the grand total to 100 pounds lost.

Not only had he made exercise a priority and a part of his everyday life, Liotta completely changed the kind of food he ate.

He replaced greasy chicken strips and fries with grilled chicken sandwiches and grapes. He stopped snacking on bags of chips and decided to try fruit. He started to eat breakfast, something he had neglected to do for most of his life.

All of the changes Liotta made have allowed him to maintain the weight that he worked so hard to achieve — and the self-esteem that came as a result.

"I'm more confident," Liotta said. "Before, I wouldn't really talk to girls I liked. I have a girlfriend now and we've been dating 11 months. My first kiss ever was last year. I'm probably the happiest I've ever been in my life."

Friends said Liotta even became more sociable when he returned after that summer.

"His personality really came out after the weight loss," said Rob Anderson, who lived with Liotta freshman and junior year. "He used to be so quiet prior to it, but as he lost weight, he started being more of himself and people realized the type of guy he was."

Liotta agreed.

"Instead of being the funny fat guy, I'm just the funny guy now," he said.

But the results Liotta experienced didn't come easily. He knows that in order to maintain his weight loss, he has to keep working for it.

"It only works if you're committed to it," Liotta said. "You do it because you want to do it. Because it's hard. That's the hardest I've ever worked at anything in my life, how hard I worked that summer."

And though his methods have remained simple, Liotta has no plans to stop working hard to be the person he wants to be.

"It is a big deal," he said. "And I know it's a big deal. But it just kind of happened. One day I was just like, 'Let's do this.' And I haven't looked back"