In 2019, my physical and mental health were at an all time low. I hated my job, and I hated the way I looked. I made excuses not to go out with friends because I felt fat and ugly. I didn’t see any point in dressing up if I still looked like a whale. I’ve had problems with my weight since I was a teenager. I was always yo-yo dieting and would go through extreme phases of binging and restricting on food so my weight was never stable. 

At the end of 2019, I hit rock bottom, my health was declining rapidly, I had trouble sleeping and breathing. Having done some research on exercise and mental health, I knew moving my body was where I needed to start and so I started following fitness instructors on Instagram and taking their advice. On my way to work, I would get off the train one stop early and walk the rest of the way. I would also take the stairs instead of the elevator. I set a goal to walk 10,000 steps a day, when I reached that and started seeing results, I decided it was time to take things up a notch. 

I had some resistance bands sitting in my draw, I pulled them out and started using them alongside a workout video. I didn’t realize how unfit I was, and I only lasted ten minutes. I continued until I could see a visible difference in my weight and started getting stronger. I now had enough confidence to start going to the gym, I would go 2-3 times a week and walk on the treadmill or the incline for 20-30 minutes. When the pandemic hit and we were on lockdown, I went for walks outside. 

Despite not changing my diet, the weight was falling off. But then I started getting ulcers and blisters in my mouth, and I was bloated all the time. After having some tests done and the doctors, I found out I had several food allergies including gluten. My doctor put a meal plan together for me, and my weight loss accelerated after that. Eventually, I lost 3 stone?? And I knew I my life had been transformed forever. 

Today, I do strength training 3-4 times a week, do 1 to 2 HIT sessions and walk 10,000 steps a day. Despite how ashamed I was of my body, I posted my progress on Instagram and got so much love and support it was overwhelming. People were inspired by my weight loss and wanted to know how I did it. After giving out loads of free advice, I studied to become a personal trainer and I am now a certified PT helping people achieve the same weight loss results as I did. 

Now I love my job, I love going shopping and going out with my friends because I feel confident in myself. Not just because of what I look like, but because of what I’ve achieved. When I was at my lowest, I could never have imagined that I would be where I am today, but here I am. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

In February 2018, I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes and chronic depression. The doctors offered me several medications, but when I went home and did some research, I realized that the side effects would do me more harm than good. But this was the catalyst I needed to make the lifestyle changes required to heal myself. I was almost 300lbs and in a lot of pain because my body was caving in on me. 

I had read about many people who had lost weight and healed themselves of all types of illnesses without medication, so I knew I could achieve the same. I learned that 80% of success in weight loss is diet-related, not crash diets, but making permanent healthy eating choices. I had spent the majority of my life fad dieting, but the weight would always return because my eating habits hadn’t changed. 

I switched from eating unhealthy processed fast foods to healthy home-cooked meals made from whole foods. The first thing I noticed was how much more energy I had. It might be easier to go out and buy a Mcdonald’s, but it makes you sluggish and lazy, which demotivates you and keeps you trapped in a cycle of unhealthy eating. I also discovered that buying healthy ingredients is a lot cheaper than eating fast food. When I was consuming a diet of junk food, I was spending almost $100 per week, I now spend $27 per week on food ingredients such as: 

• Chicken

• Onions

• Spinach

• Tomatoes

• Garlic

• Pasta

• Strawberries

• Peanut butter

I am also into cross-training and work out 5 to 6 times a week doing a combination of weight lifting and cardio. I didn’t start exercising to lose weight. I learned that therapists often advise their depressed patients to exercise because it triggers the release of the feel-good hormone dopamine. I am proud to say that I haven’t felt depressed since I started working out. It really has been a game-changer for me. I am now extremely strong and can carry my weight up a rope. When I first got started, that was impossible for me. 

I documented my weight loss process on social media to hold myself accountable. But I wasn’t expecting to inspire so many people, I now have over eight thousand Instagram followers, and I’ve become an online fitness coach. I’ve dedicated my life to helping men and women achieve their weight loss goals.  

I didn’t believe lasting weight loss was possible until I made a conscious and determined effort to be consistent with my eating habits. The problem is that everyone wants instant results. We expect a flat stomach after eating two tuna sandwiches and running half a mile on the treadmill. We give up when we don’t see the weight melt off us in the time frame that we consider reasonable but it’s unrealistic. You will then hear people complaining that they’ve tried every diet under the sun, and nothing worked for them. But I can tell you with confidence that to see results. You’ve got to be consistent. My weight loss journey started in 2018 when I was almost 300lbs. I’ve lost 88lbs, and I’m in the best shape of my life. There’s nothing special about me. I’m just an ordinary woman who chose to take on an extraordinary challenge and won.

As a fitness trainer who had never had a problem with my weight, I didn’t really understand my client’s struggles. And one day, when I was grilling someone about what I perceived was a lack of effort on his part, he informed me that I had no right to be so hard on him since I’d never been his size. That really hit home for me, and I began thinking about my inability to empathize with the people I was serving. So, I challenged myself and decided to put on weight intentionally by not going to the gym and eating a standard American diet of processed, fast foods, candy, and soda. Over six months, I gained 75lbs and then tried to lose it again. I quickly discovered that it was harder than I thought.

In theory, I understood that junk food was addictive, but in practice, I had no idea how strong that addiction was and how much it controlled your life. I also learned that being unhealthy had a negative impact on my relationships and finances. My confidence was at an all-time low, and I felt drained and unmotivated to do anything other than sit in front of the TV, eating pizza all day. I wasn’t helping as much around the house, and I wasn’t as enthusiastic about playing with my two-year-old daughter.

After six months, I started going back to the gym, and I found it extremely humiliating. I had to do push-ups on my knees, I couldn’t lift the way I used to, and I got out of breath very quickly. I could feel the eyes staring at me and all I could think about was this is what my clients go through every day. I felt terrible, and this was an experiment. Carrying this weight around for years must be horrific. 

After my weight gain experiment, I had complete sympathy for my clients. Their problems were not rooted in laziness but in food addiction, and as with any addiction, breaking it is extremely difficult. To get back on track, I designed a weekly workout plan that would give me the best results. This included working out for 45 minutes to one hour five days a week. I learned a lot during my weight loss journey, and my advice to anyone wanting to shed the pounds is:

• Make a plan: If you don’t plan how you’re going to lose weight, you’ll fail. Create an exercise plan and a meal plan, set a date to start, and stick to it. 
• Enjoy the process: One of the main reasons people give up is because they don’t see immediate results. That was definitely something I struggled with. Every week I’d look in the mirror and not see any noticeable difference. I was so desperate to get back to what I looked like, and I was getting frustrated that it wasn’t happening fast enough. I quickly learned that enjoying the process is an important part of the journey. The more you enjoy the process, the easier it will be to achieve your desired results. 
• Take two days off: Working out seven days a week and healthy eating seven days a week isn’t advisable. Firstly, you need to give your body a break, and second, having something to look forward to motivates you. There are plenty of healthy options for the junk food you enjoy. Splurge on them for two days, and then get back to your routine. 

It took me six months to lose the 75lbs I had gained, and I found it extremely difficult, but it’s most definitely possible.

You could say that I was a lucky teenager because I ate like a truck driver but didn’t put on any weight. I was extremely thin but never went to the gym, and I was completely ignorant about nutrition. I didn’t know anything about living a healthy lifestyle. My parents raised me on the meat and two veg principle because they didn’t know anything about nutrition either. 

I hadn’t been overweight until I had my first child at 35. I ate as if I was eating for three people and put on 20 kilos. I wasn’t happy about the weight I’d gained, and I tried everything in my power to lose it, but it just wasn’t coming off because I couldn’t stop eating. My problem was that I’d been used to eating what I wanted my entire life, and I hadn’t put on any weight, so my body couldn’t adjust to dieting. Cutting down on food wasn’t an option for me. I had to find an alternative. 

After my second child, I put on another 20 kilos, and it was just downhill from then onwards. As far as I was concerned, I was severely overweight and had no muscle because I had never worked out. Now that I had two children to look after, my stress levels were through the roof. I ate and drank plenty of wine to get myself through the day. I was always exhausted, and I had no energy. I would go to bed exhausted and wake up exhausted, and I would eat unhealthy foods to give me energy, but it was just one big vicious cycle. 

At 39, I decided enough was enough. I wanted to look my best at 40, and I committed to lose the weight by any means necessary, so I hired a personal trainer. He introduced me to the paleo diet, and I haven’t looked back since. The paleo diet involves cutting out dairy products, grains, legumes, refined sugars, and carbohydrates and eating lean meats, fish, seeds, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. It sounds very restrictive, but it’s not. I was eating loads and was shocked at the amount of weight I was losing. This was the perfect diet for me. I’d lost 15 kilos within three months, and I was thrilled. By my 40th birthday, I had achieved my weight loss goal of 61 kilos. I felt and looked amazing. This was the best I’d looked in my entire life because now I was toned as I was doing a lot of strength training with my personal trainer. 

I would say to anyone out there wanting to lose weight, focus on the things you can change and embrace the things you can’t. My body is covered in cellulite, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve accepted it and focus my energy on developing my body so that I can be strong, fit, and healthy when I’m in my fifties. I’ve learned that there are no miracle weight loss cures, a healthy diet has got to become a lifestyle, and that’s the only way to keep the weight off.

I was the fat kid in school who everyone bullied. My mom and I were really close, and she was always encouraging me to lose weight. Even though I hated being overweight, I was comfortable, but I would go for walks and eat healthy foods to please my mom. 

Unfortunately, when I was 14, my mom died unexpectedly in her sleep. I was so hurt and angry, and I didn’t understand why my mom was taken away from me like that. Since my mom was dead, I rebelled by returning to an unhealthy lifestyle. I took things to the extreme and tried to numb the pain with drugs and alcohol, but my biggest addiction was food. I would go to the drive-through twice a day, and with every bite, I was slowly killing myself. 

Being overweight, I had a lot of health challenges, and when I went to the doctors, there were no scales that went above 400lbs, so they put me on a special scale and found out that I weighed 421lbs. The doctors told me that if I didn’t change my lifestyle, I would be dead by the age of thirty, but I still didn’t listen. 

On March 30th, 2008, I was driving home in the dark, and I saw some headlights in the distance that blinded me. A drunk driver was driving on the wrong side of the road, he hit me head-on and I was seriously injured. I felt as if I was given a second chance, and it was after the car accident that I decided to change my life. 

I bought a dog in 2005, and he became the only reason I got up in the mornings. Now, he was my fitness partner. I started my weight-loss journey by taking my dogs for walks every morning. There was a long hill near my house, and we would run down it and walk up it. I also stopped eating fast food and started eating healthy home-cooked meals. 

A year later, I joined the gym, and I will never forget the day when I did my first pull-up. I couldn’t believe I could pull my weight up off the ground. A year ago, I could never have imagined this was possible. 

After losing 211lbs, I had a lot of loose skin, so I had surgery to remove it, which boosted my confidence even further. I was dating a wonderful woman at the time, and she moved in to look after me during my recovery. That wonderful woman is now my wife. She is my biggest cheerleader, and I love her with everything in me. 

I’ve always worked in real estate but was never passionate about it. Losing weight helped me find my passion, and that was to help others achieve what I had. So I quit my job, went back to school to study nutrition and fitness, and now I’m a personal fitness coach. 

At 250lbs, I’m lighter than I’ve ever been my entire life, and it’s the best feeling in the world. I don’t believe my car accident was an accident. I believe it was a wake-up call from my mom. She knows me better than anyone, and it was going to take something drastic to get me back on the road to health. I’m sure she’s smiling down at me now, proud of the man I’ve become. 

I’ve been morbidly obese my entire life. All I remember during my childhood years was being overweight. I accepted my size, the stares from people in the street, and the mean comments. I was too consumed with food to care. Of course I got depressed about it, but eating made me feel better, so that’s what I spent most of my time and money on. Fast food was my passion, and I practically ate it every night. If there were a dollar menu anywhere, I would find myself there. 

In April 2019, my life changed forever. My friends and I went to watch a hockey game in Nashville. The chairs were so small I had to squeeze myself into them to sit down. I couldn’t finish watching the game because the pain was unbearable. I stood up, burst into tears, and made my way back to the hotel room. My friends tried to comfort me the best way they knew how but there was nothing they could say to console me. 

I weighed 557lbs, and the thought of the work it was going to take to lose the weight made me cry even harder, but I had to do something. There was no way I could continue living like this. That day, I looked in the mirror and asked myself one simple question, “Do you want to live, or do you want to die?” At that moment, I chose to live. I was too young to give up on life, there was so much I wanted to do, and there was no way I could continue being as big as I was. 

I set a goal to walk 10,000 steps per day and change my diet, and I swapped fast food for healthy home-cooked meals. I had a major problem binge eating at night because I couldn’t sleep. But I found that my sleep pattern improved when I started eating properly and exercising. 

Walking was difficult for me. If I needed to go anywhere, I always drove. Not only did I want to avoid the stares, but I didn’t have the energy to walk. I was out of breath after a few short steps. But when I started walking, I realized how much I loved it. The fresh air made me feel awesome, and it wasn’t long before I was walking the equivalent of half a marathon a day. 

Being as big as I was, I didn’t focus on visible weight loss because it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. I focused on the way I felt. Healthy eating and walking made me feel spectacular, and so I kept doing it. It wasn’t long before I started noticing a difference, and my friends and family did too. 

Today I weigh 256lbs, I’ve lost a total of 301lbs, and I feel amazing. When I look at pictures of the old me, I can’t believe how big I used to be. My smile was never genuine because I always wished I could be someone else. But now, I’m that person I used to dream about, slim and athletic with a bright future ahead of me. 

This journey has been excruciating, but I am living proof that morbid obesity is not a death sentence. Anyone can change their life if they’re determined to do so.

I’ve been obese since I was six years old. My parents didn’t realize what they were doing when they were feeding us carbs and sugary foods. I think it was more about the money because those foods were cheaper. I literally felt like a freak of nature. Not only was I fat, but I was tall, and I stood out like a sore thumb. I couldn’t walk down the street without people giving me looks of disgust. I didn’t blame them because that was how I looked at myself every time I walked past a mirror. I was despicable. 

I coped by making myself the butt of every joke. In a social setting, I knew people would have something to say about my weight, so I said it first to protect myself. I was constantly embarrassing myself because I was always breaking chairs. I laughed it off, but deep down, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. 

The turning point for me was one day my friends challenged me to eat eighteen hot dogs, so I did it. They were all cheering me on while I stuffed my face, but afterward, I threw up, I was sick for the rest of the day, and I felt like a fool. I told my sister about it, and she asked me why I would do something so stupid. She said my friends weren’t laughing with me, they were laughing at me. They didn’t respect me because I didn’t respect myself. It was at that moment I decided that something had to change.

I started going to the gym every day and working out. I became so focused and refused to let anything stand in the way of my progress. I was going to lose the weight by any means necessary. 

When you start your weight loss journey, it’s so important to remember why you started your journey in the first place. It’s your why that will get you out of bed in the morning when you don’t feel like it. It’s your why that will motivate you to cook a healthy meal instead of ordering a takeaway. 

Although I lost 239lbs and I was full of energy and confidence, I had an abundance of loose skin that I wasn’t happy about. My clothes didn’t fit me properly, and I had a weird shape. I would definitely take the loose skin over being overweight, but I wanted to be confident enough to take my clothes off in public, and having surgery was the only way I could achieve this, and so that is what I did. I can now say that I’m one hundred percent happy with my body. I can walk down the street as a normal person, people don’t stare at me anymore, and I’m so grateful for that. 

I rarely had a girlfriend when I was overweight, and I didn’t blame women for not finding me attractive because I knew what I looked like. But now I have a beautiful partner, we’ve been dating for five months, and I’m so happy. 

I’m doing everything I’ve always wanted, such as climbing mountains and hiking. I’m about to start learning to surf. Had I not lost the weight, I would have missed out on these wonderful opportunities and would never have lived up to my full potential.

I was always the fat kid growing up, and I hated it. I was terribly insecure, and eating fast food made me feel better. It was a vicious circle, I hated myself for being fat, and I made myself feel better by eating the foods that made me fat.

After graduating college, my weight was at an all-time high. I was so big I could barely make it around the shopping mall with my friends. I was constantly buying new clothes because my weight kept increasing. I knew I had to do something about it, but I kept making excuses. Most of the women in my family are big, so I put it down to genetics. 

But one day, I looked in the mirror and felt such sadness for the person I saw staring back at me that I decided to take control of my life. No one was coming to rescue me from this mess I had created for myself. I had to take responsibility and lose weight. 

My weight fluctuated a lot during my teenage years because I was always fad dieting. I never kept the weight off because diets don’t work. Healthy eating is a way of life, and if I didn’t change the way I ate for good, I was going to be fat for the rest of my life. 

Losing weight was a long, slow process because I couldn’t overcome my fast food addiction. I forced myself to eat home-cooked meals, but the reality was I was too lazy to cook, and I would eat fast food eighty percent of the time. Within six months, I lost about 18 pounds, I felt a lot better about myself, but I still had a long way to go. 

I started eating a low-carb diet during the week and ate what I wanted on the weekends. Eating this way gave me the motivation I needed to keep going. I knew I couldn’t cut fast food out of my diet completely, so I did it gradually. The weight was falling off, and I was gaining more and more confidence, but I had to keep going. 

My friend told me about a bikini body guide program, it was a 28-minute workout, and it completely changed the game for me. The regime was difficult, but it was worth it. I completed the 12-week challenge and lost an extra 26 pounds, I was finally able to fit into a pair of size 12 jeans, and I was more than thrilled. 

Since losing weight, I can shop in any store and wear thigh-length shorts, and I recently ran my first half marathon. I’m so proud of what I’ve achieved. I wake up every morning full of life and vitality, excited about the future. Thinking about my life used to depress me because I couldn’t see myself happy and fat. 

I still have the odd takeaway and drink alcohol occasionally, but I eat healthy foods most of the time and exercise a lot. The past five years have been a difficult journey, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. I am happy with how I look and can look in the mirror and smile. I want every woman struggling to lose weight to know it’s possible. With consistency and determination, you can do anything.

I had been trying to lose weight for fifteen years, and nothing worked. I bought every piece of equipment and went on every new diet that came out, but I kept reverting back to the same unhealthy eating habits. My health was suffering, sleeping was difficult because I couldn’t breathe, so my doctors put me on a sleep apnea machine. My health challenges were my biggest motivator to change because I worried I wouldn’t be alive long enough to see my grandchildren grow up. 

I knew weight loss was possible because I had heard so many success stories. But I couldn’t figure out the missing link as to why I kept failing. I had several friends who had hired a weight loss coach called Charles D’Angelo and lost weight. I was skeptical at first because I had endured so many years of failure, but I was desperate, so I decided to give him a try and I don’t regret it. 

I had hired personal trainers before, but their focus was always on fitness and nutrition. While this worked for some time, I would eventually return to my old habits. I knew exactly what I needed to do, but I just couldn’t seem to do it. Charles introduced me to the missing link, and that was my mindset. 

I had no idea that I was an emotional eater, I always had a difficult situation going on in my life, and I would use that as an excuse to comfort myself with food. I felt better when I ate greasy, unhealthy fast foods, and it became a vicious cycle for me. When I had my first meeting with Charles, I knew I was onto something because he didn’t ask me about my weight loss goals, but he asked me about my emotional state. He then began to explain the connection between food and my emotions, and it started making sense. 

Before I hired Charles, I read about his weight loss journey, and because he had walked in my shoes, I knew he was the one to help me. I think many fitness coaches have never been overweight, they’ve been into fitness all their lives and never struggled with food addiction, so they don’t understand where people like us are coming from. But Charles was different. He was empathetic and could see things from my perspective. He became my accountability partner and didn’t only ask about how I was eating and my exercise regime, but he asked about my thought processes. How was I thinking about food, and what was I doing to steward my emotions so I didn’t turn to food? His body and mind strategy worked, which is why I’ve lost 160lbs since I hired him. 

When I started losing weight, the most significant difference for me was my appreciation for movement. I got comfortable being overweight, I would just make things work, but my life wasn’t normal to the average person. I couldn’t walk up the stairs in my house without getting out of breath. And I couldn’t play with my grandchildren without weasing. 

My life has changed tremendously since I lost weight, and this time around, I’ve managed to keep it off because I’m more self-aware. When things get tough, I don’t seek food as my comfort, I deal with the situation head-on, and that’s what keeps me from overeating.

When I was 17, my mom died in a car accident, and that’s when my unhealthy addiction to food started. I became an emotional eater and ate to mask the mental and emotional trauma I was dealing with. I did all the normal stuff, graduated high school, and went to college, where I met my husband. We got very comfortable in our relationship and spent the evening’s binge-eating on unhealthy processed foods. 

At 200lbs, I wasn’t happy with my weight and tried to lose it. I have an extreme personality and would put myself on a really strict diet. But I was trying to do too much at once, and I quickly lost motivation and returned to my old habits. I developed a painful foot condition called plantar fasciitis, which made my job as a nurse very difficult. I worked 12.5-hour shifts, and it was hard for me to stand up. By the time I got home, I couldn’t walk properly. 

I had several other health problems, including high blood pressure and lower back pain. I was so ashamed of my weight that I’d hide my breathing problems from my friends when we were together. 

At age 29, I weighed 284 pounds, and at only 5’4”, I was carrying too much weight for my tiny frame. I was about to turn 30, I felt I had wasted my twenties in a body I didn’t like, and now it was time to make a change. I confided in a friend about how I felt, and she recommended the Noom app. I was initially skeptical, but I decided to try it. At this point, I was willing to do anything. 

I was drawn to Noom because I could still eat the foods I loved. I just had to incorporate more healthy foods and eat everything else in moderation. Within a few weeks, I started losing weight, which motivated me to continue. I lost 60 pounds in six months and decided to start exercising. I joined my local gym and hired a personal trainer for one hour a week. The weight kept falling off, and my body was getting stronger. 

One of the strategies that really helped me during my weight loss journey is meal prep. I will always struggle with my eating habits, but meal prepping reduces the temptation to order a takeaway. When I’m hungry, and a healthy option is available, I’ll always choose the good over the bad. I also surrounded myself with the right people who encouraged me and pushed me to keep going. Joining a Facebook group with a community of people going through the same struggles as me was really helpful.

Although I’ve lost weight and have never been happier, maintaining the weight loss is harder than losing it. Some days are better than others, but I keep going regardless of how I feel because I never want to return to being overweight. I tell my story not so people can pat me on the back but to give others hope. I have survived a tragedy and become better because of it. I know my mom would be proud of what I’ve achieved. My message to anyone reading this is that you can become the best version of yourself if you’re willing to put the work in and never give up.