Today’s featured weight loss before and after story: Kriss lost 93 pounds. She lost the weight in 10 months by working out, changing her eating and tracking her progress. Here is what she shared with us:
Photo: Left – July 2012, Center – December 2012 (-59 lbs) and Right – today May 13, 2013 (-93 lbs)
After battling obesity for most of my life, last summer I decided to make a change. A lifestyle change. I had not faced complicating health factors but I wanted to make a change, feel better, live longer, and make a way for my future family. By working out, changing my eating habits, and tracking my progress, I’ve knocked off 93lbs in almost 10months. Though I am not done yet, I wanted to share my journey!
Honestly, when I tell people how I did it, it seems cliche’. LOL. It was always something I wanted to change. There were always reasons why I couldn’t, like not being able to afford gym membership, healthy foods etc. One day I found out that I had hit 300 pounds. I have always been a big girl but seeing that number, 300, hurt my heart. I realized I had gained 30+ pounds because I ate out more than usual. I was often idle, low key depressed and drinking alot. At that point I decided to do something different. In July 2012, I just started walking around the UMSL campus some nights a week. At that time I didn’t really change my diet or anything. Then i started to use the FREE gym at my job (that has been there since before i was working there of course) that I always made an excuse about not going to. July 29, 2012, I attended my aunt’s funeral in Arkansas. She had battled sooooo many health issues and it kind of hit me hard. The same weekend I moved into my apartment and from that moment forward i never looked back.
I went to the grocery store and only purchased healthy food, vegetables, chicken, brown rice, whole wheat bread, low-fat and sugar free food, etc. I did not buy any oil or flour so I couldn’t fry food. I didn’t buy heavy snacks and chips but transitioned to fruits and applesauce and 100 calorie kettlecorn. I began working out 6 days a week…60-70 min a day. I started slow doing all cardio…treadmil and elliptical….as I got comfortable I increased my incline on the treadmil and i increased my resistance on the elliptical to begin to challenge myself. I even increased my gym time to between 70-90min a day. My motivation came from my family just saying they were proud of me for making the steps I made. The guy I am dating encouraged me and acted as my personal trainer in a completely different city. Many times I looked in the mirror and I saw the same person. He always told me that you may not see the change yet but the scale knows best. He was right because even though I felt like I looked the same every week when I weighed in the number got smaller. He was truly my back bone because times when I weighed in and I didnt lose anything after working hard in the gym i would get discouraged but I was reminded that “its not in vain you see how far you’ve come, next week youre going to come back firing.” And i did. Sometimes when I was tired i took breaks. At times I ate sweets and fried foods too but it was not the norm. I didn’t resort to rabbit food. I enjoyed everything I ate, looked up recipes tried new things and I made a transformation. Once I truly made it up in my mind, I began to become accustomed to this lifestyle. I made it a routine and now it’s hard to break or veer from it. Now, I work out 5 days a week, 65-75min a day. I monitor my calorie intake with myfitnesspal and right now. I consume 1250-1350 calories a day and I burn 1230-1300 calories a day and I drink alot of water, atleast 128 fl oz a day. This is my new life, my new lifestyle. I was told I have been a motivation to many hopefully my story can be featured one day. And if the picture above doesn’t show my face well enough…here is another! Thank you all for providing these success stories!
“My story: I had my fifth child June 2011. I lost baby weight and weighed 220 pounds. After that, I went through postpartum depression and gained a whopping 50 pounds. As you can see, I am/was an emotional eater. Then in May 2012, I lost my father and gained a couple more pounds. Weighing 273, I was emotionally drained, embarrassed about my body, and I hated what I saw in the mirror. I did yo-yo dieting for years trying anything u can think of. In August 2012, I had to get a tumor removed. I was diagnosed with high cholesterol, diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and Hidradenitis suppurativa. I take meds for all these ailments. I decided then that I had to get my life together because death was knocking at my door. I’d done a lot of research and was determined to get my life back. I started 
ing! That was the person I appeared to be! I have always been very expressive and very different, but I have always felt like, well I couldn’t be ME. Why, Because I wasn’t happy with the person I was. Even as a child, I remember being called fat by classmates and to this day I HATE that word with a passion! I couldn’t understand it. I tried to be nice to everyone, have fun with my friends, treat others the way I wanted to be treated, yet sometimes I was ridiculed for my size. I would go home, cry and ask God why he made me the way I was! My weight, my lips, my teeth..I hated EVERYTHING ABOUT MY BODY! Ok, I’m getting depressed…NO! I’m Not (Bi-polar moment) ……Sooooooo Back to the journey.
