Real life weight loss: "I was addicted to take-outs – then I lost 100lbs"

A woman from Pennsylvania has transformed her body after losing over 100lbs through healthy eating and exercise. Rachelle Diaz confesses that she would often eat fast food such as McDonald’s and Chinese takeout every day. 

However once she hit her heaviest weight of 267lbs, she decided to challenge herself to get in shape and has since lost over 100lbs. She told her story to YouTube channel Truly, which is documenting dramatic weight loss transformations. 

Rachelle said: “I’ve been big my whole life, since I was a little girl I was chunky. My whole family didn’t think I was going to stick to [a diet]. When I started, it was like The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” 

Watch Rachelle's weight loss story here:

Despite being a confident person both before and after her weight loss journey, Rachelle has “fallen in love” with the new version of herself and loves to flaunt her results. 

She added: “I’ve always carried myself with such confidence. I wanted to see how I would look as a different version of myself. When I kept going and I saw myself at each level, I fell in love with it. Of course I’m proud and of course I’m glad I didn’t settle for surgery.”

"For the first four months, all I did was eat good," said Rachelle. "Instead of having rice, I would have beans or vegetables." Rachelle immediately hit on a big weight loss secret, that you can't out-train a bad diet. 

Learning to eat healthily, whether using the best blenders to make yourself a smoothie or air fryers to enjoy favorites with a fraction of the added calories, will make your weight loss journey so much easier. Rachelle fell in love with cooking for herself – our best vegan cookbooks are a great starting point.  

Rachelle can also be seen learning how to do barbell squats. While building muscle with big, heavy weights seems counter-intuitive to weight loss at first glance, changing your body composition is one of the best things you can do. Building muscle protects your bones and joints, improving your fitness while burning calories, as your body demands more oxygen to fuel all these new muscles.  

How to do a barbell squat

• Pick up a barbell loaded with medium to heavy weights and lift it onto your shoulders. Pull back your shoulders so that the bar has a place to rest. 
• You should be holding the bar with an overhand grip (with your palms and fingers facing forwards).
• By pushing your hips back and bending at the knees, lower your body as far as you can. 
• Pause, then return to the starting position. Your core should be braced, your lower back arched and your torso remain upright throughout.