Real life weight loss: How this woman lost 115lbs in just nine months!

Rosie from Atlanta, Georgia weighed 275lbs at her heaviest before an active lifestyle change transformed her life

Brand New Me
(Image credit: Future)

A woman has lost 115lbs – and now gets mistaken for Alicia Keys. Rosie from Atlanta, Georgia weighed 275lbs at her heaviest, at age 22, and was headed towards 300lbs. However, one new year, she made a firm resolution to herself, and began changing her lifestyle. She told her story to YouTube channel Truly, which is documenting radical body transformations. 

She said: "I felt like I had to hide in the corner, in the shadows and let everyone else be their happy normal selves, because I was ‘too fat’ to be any of those things.” Rosie began creating vision boards, with her inspiration of her ‘dream self’ - including photos of celebrities and empowering words. She also began jump roping and hula hooping, and lost 115lbs in nine months. 

She now weighs 160lbs, and gets mistaken for singer Alicia Keys in the street. She said: “A lot of the times I get confused for Alicia Keys, I think that’s so funny.”

Watch Rosie's inspiring story here:

What we learned from Rosie's story:

After six years, Rosie weighs 160lbs, keeping off her weight throughout all that time. "I started off really simply, just walking for one mile in the park," said Rosie. "That quickly turned into one mile of jogging, then five miles jogging. After I got kind of bored with that, I turned to at-home workouts." 

Walking to lose weight is a great way to get started when it comes to losing weight. It's easy to get started, being a very low-intensity exercise. It's also very convenient to incorporate into your day, whether you walk to work instead of taking the bus or ensure you take a stroll round the block in your lunch hour. Whether a quick stroll in the city or a larger hike, all you need is a pair of the best shoes for walking to get started. 

Eventually, you can work up to jogging as Rosie did. An effective way to get started is the walk-run technique. In a nutshell, it's breaking up your run with regular periods of walking. begin with a 30 second/30 second even split. Once you feel yourself getting fitter, you can decrease the time spent walking – for example, walking for 20 seconds, then running for 40. 

These markers will give you a clear sense of progression, even if you're just starting out: you'll soon be able to run for the entire duration. To mix things up, you can also follow in Rosie's footsteps and try hula-hoop or jump-rope workouts. 

 

Matt Evans

Matt Evans is an experienced health and fitness journalist and is currently Fitness and Wellbeing Editor at TechRadar, covering all things exercise and nutrition on Fit&Well's tech-focused sister site. Matt originally discovered exercise through martial arts: he holds a black belt in Karate and remains a keen runner, gym-goer, and infrequent yogi. His top fitness tip? Stretch.