✓ ‘We lost almost 300kg!’ Inspiring real-life role models s share their weight- t-loss loss se secrets
Amazing 2016 Aussie slimmers
‘I lost 46kg on the 5:2 diet’
Elle Dawson had been struggling with her weight since childhood but she’s finally happy in her own skin, thanks to following the popular fasting 5:2 diet. At just 16 she weighed 100kg and eight years later, in 2012, was rushed to hospital with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. She was 114kg and knew things had to change to increase her chances of falling pregnant again. So, Elle, 28, quit smoking, started exercising and cut her daily calorie count to 1200. But it wasn’t until she discovered the 5:2 diet that the weight started falling off. She ate normally for five days a week and restricted her diet to only 500 calories on the other two days. “My body adapted quickly and after a few weeks I no longer felt hungry on fast days,” Elle explains. She initially lost 5kg before having her second baby, after which she picked up where she left off and finally reached her goalgo weight of 68kg.
We revisit four of our favourite transformations to marvel at how these readers ditched their bad habits to look and feel better than ever
‘I walked off 68kg’
The word “exercise” used to petrify Katherine Frew and she’d do anything to avoid it.
“I hated the idea of sweating and I didn’t understand why someone would want to do that to themselves,” the 21-year-old says.
Her sedentary lifestyle and love of junk food meant by the time she reached 19, her weight had hit 133kg. “I remember thinking, ‘What have I done to myself?’” says Katherine.
Determined to change, she started exercising and going for walks around her neighbourhood, slowly increasing her distances until she lost 30kg, and felt confident enough to join a gym. “Now I’m there almost every day, walking, jogging or working on my core,” she says.
Katherine also credits her success to tracking everything she eats. Two years on, she can walk 8km in one go, is a slim 65kg and feels more confident than ever about her body.
‘I started moving and lost 100kg’
At 167kg, Sam Hart had become so obese she was too ashamed to go outside and was living as a virtual recluse.
“If someone asked me to go out, I’d say no,” says Sam, 44, who only ever left the house for work. “I stopped doing all the things I loved, like swimming. I’d lost who I was.”
At her heaviest, her waist circumference was 167cm, meaning that at a height of only 157cm she was wider than she was tall – and her health suffered. She developed high blood pressure and even simple tasks like driving were difficult.
Desperate to overhaul her health, Sam sought the help of a personal trainer and started doing a mix of cardio, weights and classes. A diet reboot followed, ditching processed food and snacks for healthy, fresh options. Now two year later she’s reached her goal weight of 64kg.
Little rewards along the way helped to keep her motivated and she’s finding joy in life again. “I rode a segway at 110kg, I went skydiving at 95kg, and I’ve ridden a bike for the first
time in 15 years!years!” she says.