How I Lost 70 lbs Naturally in a Year | Weight Loss Transformation Story | Before & After Pictures

my name is Nikki and I'm going to share my story of how I lost 70 lbs in a year after struggling with my weight my entire life when I started my weight loss journey in April of 2020 I never imagined that I would actually have the success that I was able to and a few months in I already wanted to share with others what was working for me because I could not believe that it actually was so today I'm going to be sharing what I did to actually lose 70 lbs and keep it off and

I just want to show my entire journey in pictures so you won't be seeing much of me I'm going to be putting pictures on the screen to show the beginning of my journey of until now and just talk about the process and what I did to have success so growing up I always struggled with my weight since I can remember I struggled with binge eating where I liked to eat food in private I would take snacks from downstairs and hide them in my room until I was able to go up there and eat them this

continued through high school I really struggled with my relationship with food even being a college athlete I played volleyball from middle school through High School throughout College as well and throughout that entire time I struggled being overweight but I think I kept it off a little bit because of how active I actually was but my diet choices were not great my nutrition was not good and throughout that time I always wanted to lose weight I would struggle with losing weight and just different restrictions that I would do I would try these different diets especially after

I graduated college Adam and I my husband now we had both always struggled with our weight and we continued to gain weight after we graduated we would try a bunch of different things some really crazy diets like I'm going to put put on the screen this is one that was really hard for me and I attempted it and it did not make me feel good I also had Adam and I run a half marathon together which was not fun either but all these things that I thought I had to do to get in shape and

be healthier all while I continued to gain weight the two of us continued to gain weight after college we got our own house a few months after we graduated which was really nice we decided to do that instead of having a wedding and so we had our house and we both worked a lot and because of it we decided to eat a lot of takeout food a lot of the time we never really made healthy choices at all and our health was definitely put on the back burner I had been asked to stand up in

my friend's wedding and I got the dress I really wanted to lose weight for it yet I continued to gain weight and this was because at the time I was working a full-time job at a bakery that was taking so much out of me physically mentally emotionally it was just a lot on me I would work 50 hours a week a lot of the times and then I would go home and I had a cookie business that I ran and this cookie business took up so much of my time pretty much any second I wasn't

at work I was at home working on this cookie business because I had a really hard time turning down orders and I didn't want to say no to customers so I just kept taking orders way more than I could take and because of it I spent all of my time working on them and I was able to manage this for a few years until it really caught up to me in the span of 2 years I gained about 50 lb that was when my friend's wedding came up I was really upset that I had put

on more weight than when I first got the dress and I wanted to start losing weight I just did not feel comfortable in my body at all and there were a lot of things I was struggling with I had a lot of knee pain during this time I also wasn't getting sleep there were some nights I would get 30 minutes to an hour of sleep because of how much I was doing with my cookies and then I'd have to quickly lay down and get up and go back to work at 6:30 in the morning so

that was a lot on me and that was when I pretty much had hit my breaking point it got to the point where I would be at work and my toes would be numb I was just never feeling good I felt sick all the time I was out of breath when I would go up the stairs my knees hurt my back hurt I was struggling so much and I felt so hopeless I felt like there was nothing I could do to get out of this situation I felt like I was a failure and I didn't

deserve to take care of myself and I really felt like giving up and it was at that time where I was just desperate I was online one night looking at some Instagram photos just on my explore page and I had seen some transformation pictures and one of those must have really caught my eye and got me motivated because I kind of went down a rabbit hole I found Weight Watchers through some people and that's when I decided to look into that because I found out they had an online only program instead of having to go

into meetings cuz I was very shy I didn't want to have to do that that night I decided to ask my husband if he would want to sign up for Weight Watchers to try something new because again he had always struggled with his weight as well and he had put on a significant amount of weight at this point too we both had we were both living a very unhealthy lifestyle so we agreed to just try it the next day and we haven't looked back since so the next day I decided to take some progress pictures

I didn't want to do it at all I was really dreading it and you can tell by the look on my face in all of the pictures I never imagined that I'd be sharing the pictures with anyone especially online with thousands of people so that is also why I have the faces I have I didn't think I'd be sharing with anyone other than myself because in the past I had taken so many before pictures and never actually followed through with my weight loss and so I would just end up deleting them and getting frustrated so

that was kind of the mindset I had going into this although part of me was a little bit more positive and a little bit more hopeful this time so I decided to take some pictures in different outfits so that I could just see different parts of me as I was losing weight and just different outfits how they would look as I lost weight and I put those in my hidden folder on my phone so that nobody could see them other than me when I went in and put in the passcode and that helped me a

lot to just kind of get that weight off my shoulder about other people maybe like going through my pictures and seeing embarrassing pictures of me and that helped me to actually keep them which keeping them I think was a huge part of why I stuck with it because I was able to compare it as I went and it really did keep me motivated so when I first started I started looking at the meals I was eating before and how high point they were talking about Weight Watchers points I was eating like triple my points in

a day in just one meal that I was supposed to be having and it really opened my eyes to how big the portion sizes I was having were and just how unhealthy I was eating and so I started to really focus on zero point Foods on proteins incorporating vegetables and fruits into my meals and making meals that were actually filling but that I actually liked because in the past I always felt so restricted when I would try to lose weight I felt like the meals I made were just like dry and Bland and this time

I didn't want it to be like that I wanted to actually enjoy what I was eating so I tried to make it fun from the start and I think that that also really helped me because I wanted to be creative I wanted to try to make substitute options of different meals that I used to eat when I was heavier and meals that I still enjoyed and when I started out I just wanted to focus on tracking consistently I didn't set like any certain goal weight to hit by the first month because in the past I

would always do that and it would just bring me down and I could never stick to it so this time around my focus was just 30 days of tracking every meal and as I was doing that throughout the weeks I was losing weight because I would do my weigh-ins every Tuesday morning and to be honest I was shocked I did not expect to have success the way that I did I had never lost weight in my life like I would try so many different things and if I did I would stick to them for like

2 to 3 days but within the first week of tracking my meals I saw progress and maybe not so much like on my body but the scale was going down and I was feeling a million times better so I continued to take updated progress pictures as I went each week I would take them on Tuesday mornings when I would do my weigh-ins sometimes I would just try on like a swim swi suit that I had taken pictures in then the next time I would do my sports bra like I would just switch off the outfits

that I would try so that I just had them as I went and again those kept me so motivated to see progress when maybe I wasn't feeling it or the scale didn't reflect it but just having progress pictures throughout my journey really did help me stick with it this time I continued to stick with it and stay consistent every month that I would actually track every day I rewarded myself so my first month I got myself a foot massager 3 months in I dyed my hair 6 months in I got a tattoo like I had

these different rewards that I would give myself if I actually stuck with tracking because it was working and then I was getting these rewards that weren't food related but kept me motivated and kept me wanting to track every night it would be the end of the day and I wouldn't want to track my dinner but I would remember okay if I do this though I get to get a tattoo at the end of this month and so that really helped me to stay on track in a more positive way than like if I hit the

end of the month and I didn't lose 20 lbs when that was my original goal I can't really control that and so that didn't hold me back the way that it had in the past and I remember being so shocked and starting to feel conf ident for the first time in my life about this aspect and the reason I was feeling confident wasn't because of how I looked cuz again I wasn't seeing that much progress yet but I was so confident in the fact that I was actually doing it I was actually doing the right

thing and having success and it was just by choosing better meals and healthier food options and at that point I hadn't even started working out so there were a few different times where I would actually go out and just have Adam or Trevor take some pictures of me I would put on a dress like I remember on my birthday I did because I was feeling so good and so confident for the first time and when I look back at those pictures they honestly just make me happy because I know how good I felt for the

first time in them and it was just because I was proud of the progress I was making and the success I was having was staying consistent and I just started feeling better and better and at this point actually my husband was also losing weight with me like I said we signed up with Weight Watchers together so he was losing pretty much the same as I was as we were going and we were both just really staying consistent with it and feeling good so like I said I wanted to focus mostly on my nutrition but then

3 months in after I had lost about I want to say it was like 35 lbs at that point I decided to incorporate some exercise and I wanted to find something that I would actually stick to in the past I would force myself to do things that I did not enjoy like running or going to the gym and doing like burpees and push-ups I just never stuck with it I never enjoyed it so this time around I wanted to do something I actually would look forward to and that's why I decided to start rollerblading it

was during covid so I I just went to Dick Sporting Goods they barely had anything but I got a pair of men's rollerblades and I started just going around my neighborhood or in parking lots and it was a lot of fun it took some time to get used to and to get like back into it again but it became my favorite way to get moving the only thing that was an issue was that it started to get cold outside and I needed to find a new way to stay active when I couldn't skate outside because

there was snow or it was too cold out that was when I decided to start lifting weights it was something I had done in the past when I was in college a little bit but kind of struggled with when I was in college so it wasn't something that I totally knew what I was doing when I got started again but I really wanted to see my body get a little bit more toned I was about 6 months or 7 months into my journey at that time and had lost about 60 lbs so I wanted to

just start toning up more and building some muscle so I started at home for like a month but that was also because the gyms were closed and then I was able to start going to Planet Fitness where I just took it slow and tried to do the things that I enjoyed with lifting weights and teaching myself as I want I continued to do this throughout the winter and then when it got nice out again I was able to start skating again with a balance of lifting weights as well and that's what I've maintained since then

it's just been my favorite way to stay moving and get exercise so after about a year of losing weight I lost 70 lbs in a year it's interesting because I lost the first 50 lbs in 5 months and then it took me another 6 months to lose the last 20 lbs that I did but around that point was when I was sharing my Journey online I had started up my YouTube channel and I also had my Instagram page where I shared my weigh-ins my different tips and recipes and workouts that I would do just different

parts of my journey because it really helped me to stay accountable and to connect with others and at that point there was something on Weight Watchers where they had asked for people to share their story so I submitted mine and Adam's story and they reached out to us asking if we'd want to be part of a commercial the only thing was it was still during Co so we couldn't actually go to like a studio to film it we actually had to film it ourselves they sent us a camera and we went and filmed the b-roll

footage and then they interviewed us for the like talking portion of it in our backyard over Zoom so that was a really cool experience that was something that really motivated us and just felt really good to have our story shared about the success that we had because again for both of us we had never really had success the way that we were and it was shocking but also made us feel really proud and confident and we wanted to share it with others what actually worked for us and how we were able to do it because

we felt like so many people could relate with the struggles that we had and we wanted to share like this is what we did that actually worked to help fix it it was also around that time that we finally got married we ended up just doing a courthouse wedding and then we got dressed up and took pictures and it was exactly what we wanted and it just felt good again to be in a healthier body and to just feel more comfortable and confident so then throughout that next year we just continued to stick with our

healthy habits we continued to find new foods that we enjoyed I wanted to find different activity that I like doing I started to ice skate in the winter because it was similar to rollerblading I would go hiking whenever I could and make copycat meals at home that tasted just like restaurant meals we would go to the trampoline park we would just do different activities and eat different foods that we enjoyed but that kept things interesting and fun for us and didn't make us feel restricted or like we were just living this lifestyle that we didn't

want to live that we thought we had to in the past I'd say about another year went by and we just stuck with it we stayed consistent I continued sharing my journey online and then Weight Watchers reached out again to ask if we wanted to be a part of a photo shoot because we never got to have the experience of like actually going into the studio so they flew us out to New York and we were able to be in a photo shoot which is where my picture was taken that is the picture that is

on the banner in all of the Weight Watcher studios in the US so that was one of the craziest things that's ever happen in my life but it's one of those things I drive by the Weight Watcher Studio every day and I see my poster there and it reminds me of where I started and how far I've come and it just doesn't even feel real to me because for so long I just remember sitting there and thinking there's nothing I can do and I felt so hopeless and I felt like there was no way out

of this position I was stuck in and I just wanted to change I just wanted to feel good and be the best version of myself that I could be and it took prioritizing my health not just physical also my mental health which I talk about a lot on my channel but mental health is just as important as physical health and especially with my way loss Journey that was one of my top priorities but because of it I have been able to achieve so many goals that I never thought I could I was able to write

a cookbook with all of the recipes that I made throughout my weight loss Journey that helped me to have success with my weight loss I've finally learned how to have balance and not feel guilt after eating an indulgent meal or enjoying myself or enjoying myself at a family event and not stressing about having those higher Point things or a glass of wine or something indulgent that in the past I would feel guilt for I've learned to finally have balance bance and enjoy those things and get right back on track when I need to because that

is what it's all about in order for this to be sustainable I know that it's not easy and I think about the start of my journey all the time and the mindset that I had starting and how much I cried I used to cry every single day in 2019 and 2020 before I made the choice to take control of my life I felt so hopeless I felt just miserable honestly and again so much of that was my situation that I put myself and I was overworking myself I needed to get out of it but it

was also my health I was neglecting my physical mental and emotional health and I needed to make a change and just thinking about that first week and how much better I already felt it is amazing how much of a difference prioritizing your health can do for your entire life and that's why I've wanted to share my story and I've wanted to share what's worked for me and share that it is possible and it always sounds so cliche and just like tacky when I say believe in yourself you can do it but please listen to me

when I say say believe in yourself you can do it because that was one thing that finally changed in my mind for so long I thought everyone else deserved it and I just needed to people please and not worry about my health and when I finally made that change and realized I can do this everything changed for me and I have been able to do more for others because I have taken care of my health and prioritized my well-being as well so I hope you guys find this video helpful I hope it's helpful to see

all the pictures from start to finish and I just want you to understand that I know what it feels like to be there and that it is possible to get out even if you're feeling hopeless even if you're really struggling it is possible and that's why I love sharing my journey and sharing what works for me because for so long I thought that I had to just live this restricted life and not be able to enjoy it and you can enjoy it but if you take away one thing from this video it is that consistency

is so important and take it one day at a time don't overwhelm yourself with a bunch of changes at once but you can make small changes that start to make you feel better and as that happens it'll just get a little bit easier and I'm not saying it'll be easy but it will get easier each day starts to get easier when you develop these healthier habits that you can stick to and just focus on staying consistent and not the end result if you guys enjoyed this video or found it helpful please go ahead and give

it a like And subscribe to my channel I really appreciate it thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you next time [Music]