Before: 198 pounds
After: 125 pounds
The Lifestyle
As a teenager, it felt like I had no control over the amount of food I would eat. I would grab a bag of chips and devour the whole thing. I also felt really stressed about school—even if it was only high school—and didn't know how to handle it other than eating. Although I was active in junior high by playing softball, volleyball, and basketball, I had to stop sports my freshman year of high school because I injured my shoulder playing softball, which was really a bummer because softball was my favorite. When I was playing sports, I was at a healthy weight that stayed stable—but I didn't know how to transition from always being active in sports to not having structured workouts. I basically just gave up on exercising.
It wasn't long after that when my weight started spiking. Like a lot of teenagers, I loved sandwiches, muffins, chips, and junk food. I was a huge carb lover. And as far as family meals went, we would eat a lot of beef. Although there would always be veggies on the table, we loved the starchy vegetables like potatoes and always had dinner rolls. Between my freshman year and my senior year of high school, I gained at least 50 pounds and hit 198 pounds by my senior year of high school in 2011.
The Change
During my junior and senior years of high school, I wasn't feeling very well. I would get headaches that would put me out of commission for a week and really bad acid reflux. My dad also had the same problems and his doctor recommended that he start trying to lose weight. After that, my parents talked to me about doing the same thing because I really wasn't at a healthy body weight for my height. When I stepped on the scale in 2011 and saw that I was almost 200 pounds—which was probably more than my boyfriend at the time—that was when it hit me that I needed to get my weight under control.
My dad had a lot of success losing weight by using the Atkins diet, so I decided to try the same thing. It was so hard at first counting how many carbs I was taking in, but I tried to keep it under 20 net carbs per day. I ended up cutting out a lot of my pre-diet foods, like sandwiches and chips. Another thing that was hard to eliminate, though it sounds kind of weird, was ranch dressing. I would eat salads and just drench them in ranch, which wasn't exactly healthy.
Beside avoiding those foods, I also added new ones to my diet. Canned tuna and chicken became my go-tos instead of beef, and even though I have really never been a vegetable person, I began eating cucumbers, broccoli, and okra (I had no idea what it even was before I started losing weight!). Once I gave them a chance, I actually started to like veggies!
When I got to college, I was still trying to drop pounds, but the campus cafeteria was so tempting. I would see people eating cereal or at the pasta bar, and it was definitely hard not to do the same. I just told myself that I have to stick to what I know is good for me. In the cases where the cafeteria didn't have anything I could eat, I would eat the Atkins frozen meals in my dorm room. The dining hall wasn't the only thing that threatened to derail my weight-loss plans, either: My roommates would always go out to eat or out to the dorm's ice cream socials, and I didn’t want to just sit in my room by myself. So I would go along and just order an iced tea. This was surprisingly helpful because I was still doing something with my hands and going through the motions while spending time with my friends.
By 2012, the end of my freshman year of college, I had gotten down to 125 pounds.
The Reward
My mom loves shopping for clothes with me, but when we would go I would always get grouchy. I would get into the car knowing I wasn't going to find anything cute that fit me. Now it's actually fun for me again because I can fit into clothes that I like. Plus, I don't have to worry that stores or brands won't have my size.
Another random thing I can do now that I couldn’t do before is get a piggyback ride from my boyfriend. For the first three years of our relationship, I knew he could lift me but I was embarrassed about how heavy I was. My first piggyback ride from him made me feel really proud of how far I've come.
My Tips
Pay attention to serving sizes. One of the hardest parts was controlling how much I ate. If I couldn't find it on the box, I would search for it online so I would know exactly what I was eating. You don't always realize that there is more than one serving in a container.
Use your family as your mirror. You might not see results right away, but don't get discouraged. My friends and family gave me reassurance and told me that even though I couldn’t see a difference they could see that my body was changing for the better.
Set smaller goals, and give yourself rewards for meeting them. If I lost 20 pounds, I would buy myself an outfit. I set new goals every two weeks to keep myself motivated—and it worked!
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Ashley Pavelka, 22, is a student at Creighton University in Nebraska
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