A woman who hated the way she looked in her vacation photos has lost nearly 100 pounds – almost half her body weight – naturally in just a year. Sarah, 24, from New York City, arrived home from a vacation to Delray Beach and Key West, Florida, in December 2023, and "hated" how she looked in every photo taken of her. Everything in life was going well, she said, but she felt she had been neglecting her body, which she attributed to her weight standing at 234lbs in January 2024. Having viewed this negativity as something completely within her control, she committed to a clear vision for natural weight loss – focusing first on tracking her calories and the meals she was eating. She practiced intermittent fasting and restricting her eating window to between 11am and 6pm, and exercised 40 minutes of cardio daily, alternating between a stationary bike, elliptical and stair master. Sarah admitted the first month was the toughest,as she was moving from the habit of overeating whenever she liked to mindful eating. On her weight loss journey, she posted videos and photos of her progress to social media - being inspired to do so because she felt she had not seen many natural weight loss examples of people her age when looking for inspiration herself. By January 2025, one year after she started, Sarah weighed 140 pounds – a loss of 94 pounds naturally.
00:00Sarah scrolled through her camera roll after her vacation and hated what she saw.
00:06It wasn't the trip, it was how she saw herself in every single picture.
00:11She weighed 234 pounds.
00:13Every photo I took, I was just looking at it and I was so upset with myself.
00:18And I knew that it was in my control.
00:20It was the one thing that I could change for the better.
00:23It was impacting not only my mental health, but my physical health as well.
00:27Instead of dwelling on it, Sarah chose to transform her life.
00:32The approach was simple.
00:33First, tracking calories and what she was eating.
00:36She embraced intermittent fasting, restricting her eating window from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
00:42My first goal was to reach 190 or 180 pounds.
00:46But besides that, I didn't have a really, really big goal.
00:49The first few weeks, I took things extremely slowly.
00:52I remember I was just trying to eat less and I started to cut off when I would finish eating.
00:58So usually around 7 p.m., I would tell myself, that's it, you're not eating anymore for the day.
01:03It was rough.
01:04I'm not going to lie to you.
01:05I think the hardest part about weight loss is that first month where you're switching your habits.
01:10You're going from being like, oh, I can eat whatever I want to restricting yourself and telling yourself, I can't eat that.
01:17I'm sorry.
01:17And when it came to exercise, 40 minutes of daily cardio, hitting the stationary bike, elliptical, or Stairmaster.
01:25Even at my heaviest, I was always very active.
01:28I was actually at the gym, like, lifting weights seven days a week.
01:32I just wasn't eating right.
01:33When I noticed that I lost the most amount in a month was the months that I was the most active.
01:38It was like the months where I switched my job and I was just, like, on my feet more.
01:42It's not even about going to the gym.
01:44It's just about moving more.
01:45Fast forward a year, the results are incredible.
01:50By January 2025, Sarah weighed a healthy 140 pounds, a staggering 94-pound weight loss, almost half her body weight, entirely naturally.
02:02I feel amazing.
02:03I feel 100 times better.
02:05Honestly, one of the biggest motivators I feel for weight loss is, like, not only your clothes being looser, you feel more good about your body,
02:12but it's also when other people are like, hey, like, did you lose weight?
02:15You look really good.
02:17Like, that for me was very motivating.
02:19Sarah shares her weight loss journey and weight loss tips with followers on social media.
02:25People were saying that this was really inspiring to them.
02:27So I just decided to, like, keep posting, posting every day.
02:31I feel like for me and my age, when I was starting to lose weight, I didn't see a lot of people, like, my age lose the amount of weight I have.
02:40So I feel like for others, it's very motivating to know that they can do it, and it is possible.
02:46When people think about losing a really big amount of weight, they always think of, like, I'm not going to be able to do that naturally.
02:53I'm going to have to take a GLP-1 or a Zempick.
02:56I have nothing against them.
02:57I think they're very useful tools, but I just want to let people know that it is still completely possible to lose a really big amount of weight naturally.
03:05Looking back when I first was starting to lose weight, I would never imagine I would have lost 90 pounds in one year.
03:12I would have never thought that.
03:13I would have been, like, maybe 40, maybe 30, but not 90.
03:17I still can't believe it sometimes, you know?
03:19I lost the weight of a 12-year-old boy.
03:21Not even just mentally and, like, how I felt about my body.
03:25Physically, too, though.
03:26I'm able to walk 30,000 steps a day if I please.
03:30I don't have heartburn anymore.
03:32I don't have back pain.
03:33And it's like all these symptoms of obesity were really affecting my life.
03:37And now I don't have that anymore, and it feels awesome.
