When Jerimiah McClary walked onto the Georgia Tech campus as a student, the promising freshman defensive lineman from Lawrenceville, Ga., weighed a trim 230 pounds.

Four years later, through a regimen of lifting and eating, he’d bulked up to nearly 300. His massive frame broke through the interior of one offensive line after another as the Yellow Jackets claimed the 1990 national championship with McClary as team captain.

“In school, I would burn 9,000 calories a day,” said McClary, Mgt 91. “There’s nothing to deprogram guys at the NCAA level. They’re giving you all the food, and the coaches are yelling at you to gain weight. There’s a challenge there. If you fail to [adopt healthy eating habits] at that age, you’re probably not going to do it the rest of your life.”

McClary, who didn’t play professional football, never changed his eating even as he stopped burning so many calories. He was busy with work, including stints at Coca-Cola and the Ford Motor Company.

A healthy lifestyle became even more difficult to maintain following the death of his mother, Johnnie Mae Harrington, in 2006.

“I have nine brothers and sisters,” McClary said. “My mother had to cook a lot for us. She just said, ‘If I’m cooking this much already, I’ll just make it a business.’”

Harrington started J & L Catering in Lawrenceville. It featured the country cooking that traced back to the family’s roots in Buggtown, a rural former slave community in Gwinnett County that was home to only a handful of families.

After Harrington’s death, McClary and a brother partnered to take over the business, which is now called Flavors Catering & Events Services.

“It’s almost like a conflict of interest,” he said. “You have to sample the food, but you don’t want to go overboard.”

And yet, at 42 years old, with the 20th anniversary of the championship looming, McClary realized his weight had grown into a problem. The scales tilted at 485 pounds.

He and his wife, Nicole, had begun talking about having children, and he worried about how his weight might challenge him as a father.

“I couldn’t imagine running after a 4-year-old,” he said. “The body starts turning against you. When your knees and ankles start to go, then you can’t exercise. It’s a vicious cycle.”

McClary had tried losing weight before, but diets never worked for him. He decided to try Healthe Trim, a diet pill that includes green tea leaf extract.

Shortly after beginning his effort, McClary was listening to Atlanta radio station Q100 when he heard it was running a three-month weight-loss challenge sponsored by Healthe Trim. He applied and was selected for the challenge.

McClary’s efforts were recorded in a blog on the station’s Web site.

“As the days on the calendar continue to fall off, I am happy to report so have the pounds,” he wrote. “This has been a trying month for me — at the start of the month I twisted an ankle, and the pace in which I was progressing has slowed considerably.

“However, I am pleased to report that I have not fallen off of the wagon. I have made the transition to a ‘lifestyle’ approach on my eating habits. What that means to me is … at each and every meal I stop to consider what’s in the dish and how it will impact me and my goals.”

He had been taking in 6,000 calories a day and cut that to 2,100. He was feeling miserable at first and described it to a friend who had quit smoking. McClary’s friend said it sounded like his body was undergoing withdrawal.

McClary said an important realization was the emotional connection he had to food, and that certain foods affected him more than others. Even with the constant temptation of the catering job, he knew he had to cut out fried food.

“It was life or death,” he said.

McClary also enjoyed once again feeling like he was part of a team. He and the seven other participants encouraged each other along.

“With this group, we had a common cause,” he said. “As an athlete, you have a team. But then you’re on your own, and that accountability is lost. This is like getting ready for fall football and two-a-day practices.”

McClary also had the support of his former teammates. He said most of the 1990 team had reunited on Facebook in recent years. Looking back on the championship, he said what he held most clearly in mind were the friendships he’d made and kept through the years.

While reconnecting, McClary discovered he was far from the only former player experiencing weight problems.

The same challenge of switching from a life of constant exercise to a more normal existence was adding to their waistlines as well. One had even passed away from weight-related health problems, he said. As the captain, McClary decided to lead the way.

At the end of three months, an early-morning weigh-in at the Q100 studios revealed that McClary had lost 50 pounds. While it’s no small accomplishment, McClary made it clear he wasn’t satisfied.

“I was hoping it to be more,” he said. “But 50 pounds in three months, that’s stellar.”

McClary is hoping to lose at least another 50 before the team holds a reunion during Homecoming weekend. “I’d be happy to report at my playing weight,” he joked.

McClary also plans to help teach others what he’s learned. As a pastor at New Vision Praise and Worship Center in Lawrenceville, he’s been working with congregants on changing to healthier lifestyles.

“Our responsibility is to take care of ourselves,” he said. “You can’t go out and witness to people if you can’t go out. Jesus sent his disciples out walking. They had to walk everywhere!”

McClary also wants to help current college athletes transition to their post-playing days. He plans to call the program Heaven Can Weight.

“Once I lose enough weight, that’s something I want to go back and start,” he said. “I think that would carry a lot of weight — no pun intended.”