For 30-year-old
Judson Allen, college graduation was bittersweet. On one hand he was poised to take the culinary world by storm -- following four years as a food science and nutrition major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -- on the other hand, he'd put on more than 70 pounds throughout those undergraduate years, weight he knew would overshadow his cooking skill in the TV arena he planned to pursue.
How he gained it:
"I struggled with weight my entire life," Allen, the
"Food Network Star" hopeful, told The Huffington Post. "I was that heavy kid, that heavy adolescent, that heavy teenager and when I got to college I gained over 70 pounds my freshman year alone."The culprit: Easy access to food, Allen says. ...