Jackson was pre- diabetic, had high blood pressure, joint pain, and suffered from anxiety and depression. He was 19 and weighed 150 kilos. “I hated the way I looked in the mirror,” he said.
He started his 50 kilo weight loss journey in September of 2020. In the first 16 weeks he lost 25 kilos just by changing his diet. He’s now 20 years old, is no longer pre diabetic, no longer has high blood pressure, and is no longer anxious about his body. This is his story.
Before my weight loss I was majorly addicted to fast food and would probably eat up to 5000 – 6000calories a day. I would spend a lot of time and money eating junk. I rarely ever exercised and when I did, I always found it so hard because I had a lot of weight on me. Sometimes I would blow off plans with mates just to stay at home and eat.
I remember the exact month and year I decided to make a change it was September of 2020 I had been working full time for about 2 months at this point in my life and I was finding it very hard to get up in the morning and push myself to go to as I hated everything about my body and was constantly depressed and in a self-loathing state of mind. Then I remember one day I just had a massive panic attack because I was so sick of feeling that way and that’s when I decided to make a change for the better.
When I first started my weight loss journey, I only wanted to focus on one thing at a time and diet is the most important part of losing weight, so I started with that. I chose to keep it as simple as possible and start Lite N Easy because I didn’t want to give myself any excuse to stop what I was doing.
So one day in September of 2020 I went from about 5000-6000 calories a day to 1800 a day and I also incorporated Intermittent Fasting so I wouldn’t eat anything till 12:00pm and I’d stop eating after 7pm. I did this consistently for about 6 months and in those 6 months I lost 25 kilos just from dieting alone. It was then in April of 2021 I started to incorporate going to the gym 4-6 times a week and I instantly realised that being 25 kilos lighter makes everything epically going to the gym so much easier which then gave me even more motivation to continue what I was doing. Fast forward 7 more months I had finally reached my weight loss goal of 50 kilos, but I still wasn’t completely satisfied with my body, so I decided to get professional help from a personal trainer to set me in the right direction to build more muscle. I started seeing him in December of 2021 and am still involved with him to this day. He changes up my program every 5 weeks which changes things up for me, so it doesn’t feel like I’m doing the same things at the gym every time.
It took me a year and 2 months to reach my weight loss goal of 50 kilos and to this day I’m still trying to better myself. I’m not on Lite n’ Easy anymore, instead I’m preparing my own healthy meals and overall, I feel amazing and am so proud of myself for sticking to my guns and archiving my goal I’m able to do all things that I never thought I’d be able to do when I was overweight and that alone is such great feeling. I’m still working full time as a practice coordinator for a dental practice, but I’m going to Canada for 6 months in November on a working holiday with my best mate since year 5, something past me never would’ve expected. At the end of the day in my opinion with age comes maturity and with maturity comes reality and realistically I could never picture myself going back to the way I was before. I’m not depressed anymore, I’m not self-loathing, and most importantly I don’t feel sorry for myself anymore cause feeling sorry for myself was going to get me absolutely nowhere.
