Woman Lost 180 Pounds (Half Her Body Weight) with These 5 Eating Hacks

Have you been trying to lose weight but been unsuccessful? Sadie Chartrand of Slim Sadie Coaching is a weight loss coach, military spouse, MO, and Registered Nurse (RN) who “helps women who have been battling their bodies and struggling with their weight for their entire lives” get into shape. In a new viral YouTube video, she reveals how she did it. “This is how I lost 80 pounds in just five months,” she says at the start of the clip. “My only hope is to help you all lose weight based on my own experiences.”

She Was “So Heavy” That She Thought She Had a “Disease or Disorder”

“Two weeks before December 13th, 2017, I had decided at some point that the reason that I was so heavy had to be because of some kind of disease or disorder. So I went to the doctor, and I told myself when I went into the doctor's office if all of my results came back negative, I had to lose weight. I have no more excuses. This was December 13th, 2017. I went into the office, and she read my results back to me. Everything was totally normal,” she says in her post.

She Went to a Doctor and Had Her BMR Calculated

“I stuck to my promise to myself, so I asked this doctor to help me lose weight. The first thing that she did was body composition. From that, she showed me what my BMR was, which was basal metabolic rate. And then she explained to me that to lose weight, I needed to eat about 1,157 calories a day, no more than that,” she continued.

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She Amped Up Her Protein Intake

She is also excited about her protein intake. “She wanted to make sure that I really increased my protein. So I ate one gram of protein per pound of skeletal muscle that I had, which was about 75 grams of protein per day,” she continues.

She Cut Carbs

She also stopped eating carbs. “At the time, she really cut my carbs out. So I was only eating less than 20 net carbs per day, less than 50 total carbs per day,” she says.

Here Is What She Ate in a Day

She was eating a protein shake for breakfast and a protein shake for lunch. “And these are Premier Protein shakes, pre-made,” she says. “For dinner, I was having four ounces of meat and two cups of vegetables.”

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Walking Was Also Key

And, she got her steps in. “As for exercise, all I did was walk,” she says. A 2018 study published in the journal Obesity found a link between walking 10,000 steps a day and weight loss and weight management. Other studies published by the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) in JAMA Neurology and in JAMA Internal Medicine also linked walking 10,000 steps a day to less dementia and less cardiovascular disease overall, with less heart disease, less heart failure, and fewer strokes.

She Lost Weight Fast

When she went in for her two-week checkup “and just to check in to see how things were going,” she learned she had lost 14.7 pounds in just two weeks. “At first, I was so excited, and then everyone said, ‘It's water weight. It's going to come back. Don't get yourself all excited about this.’

She Went on to Lose 80 Pounds in 5 Months

“It never came back. And I continued to lose weight. At the end of the first month. I had lost basically 25 pounds in one month, which was my goal. I just barely miss it by a few ounces. But basically, it was 25 pounds. About two months into my journey, I had lost 40 pounds. And at the end of five months, I had lost 75 pounds. So that's why I say I lost 80 pounds in five months.”

She Gained Some of It Back

Unfortunately, she ended up gaining back 40 of those 80 pounds within a few months. “I got back into it, and I committed again. I lost all of the weight again by May of 2019. Her lowest weight was 180, and she admits that she is now 223.

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She Is Now Back on Track and Using These Tips

“I am embarrassed, I'm disappointed. But the most important thing that I have to keep reminding myself is that I've done this not once but twice before. I know how to do this, and I can do it. It's just a matter of convincing myself each and every day to do this. It's been a lot, but it's also been absolutely life-changing for me, and I was really missing out on life. So my motto is losing weight and gaining life.” And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.

Have you been struggling to lose weight but aren’t sure where to start? One expert has some game-changing advice on how to do it. Cara Peterkin is a fitness professional and YouTuber who weighs 250 pounds. “Now I'm 140 pounds, and I'm gonna tell you exactly how I lost the weight,” she says, revealing that the process took two and a half years, “and I've maintained my weight for the past year.”

Childhood Eating Habits Shaped Her Relationship with Food

Cara reveals that she grew up with unhealthy eating habits. “Quick backstory: my parents were all about ease, easily getting food to us, which meant minimal cooking. We go to Chick-fil-A, we'll go to McDonald's, we'll go to the Mexican restaurant, quick box mac and cheese, whatever was easy. That's what they did. And that set the tone for my relationship with food for the rest of my life,” she says in her post.

She Gained a Lot of Weight During Her First Two Pregnancies But Lost It

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Cara first struggled with her weight when she got pregnant at 15 and went from 150 to 192 pounds. “Typically pregnant women should only gain about 20 to 25 pounds, according to Google, but I gained 42 pounds,” she says. However, she lost it pretty easily because she was young, following a calorie deficit and exercising. When she went to college, the “food inconsistency” and “unhealthy patterns really started to return,” she says. “I definitely gained the college 30, so I went from 150 to 180. Her senior year of college she got pregnant again and went from 180 to 225 pounds.

“That was tough. I definitely looked at myself differently, and I had to adjust. I tried to adjust to the weight and just said, ‘Hey Karen, you may be that girl over 200 pounds, and you need to accept it.’ But I was so uncomfortable. I tried different weight loss methods, and I started with Weight Watchers, which got me down to about 200 pounds.”

She Ended Up 250 Pounds After Her Last Pregnancy and Couldn’t Lose It

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She then “had to kick it in high gear “ and tried to clean her diet and eliminate processed foods. “With diet, exercise, plenty of strength training, and walking, I was able to get to about 160 pounds, which was amazing. Of course, life happened. What does that mean? I went through a depression, I went through different things in my life, and I ended up gaining weight a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit until it was a lot of it and ended up at about 190 pounds average. And it was tough. I would do different yo-yo diets, try different methods, get down to 180, but always would creep back up to that 190.” During her last pregnancy, she started at 190 pounds and went up to 250 pounds. “I could not even fathom being at that number, but I was there. I will tell you that it was probably the hardest thing for me to accept, but I just made it work.” Then COVID happened, and she remained at 250, battling postpartum depression.

She Hit Her Breaking Point

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Cara’s “breaking point” and “aha” moment happened when she had an interview and couldn’t fit into her size 16 pants. “I immediately ran to the store to buy that bigger size. But once I saw the size 18 and that number, it hit me like, Kara, what's going on? You've never been this size. What are you gonna do differently? I did not let myself buy those size 18 pants, and that was my breaking point. I knew I had to make a change because I couldn't buy that bigger size.”

She Lost Her First 35 Pounds with Weight Watchers and OrangeTheory

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In March of 2021, she tried Weight Watchers again, pairing it with OrangeTheory, losing 35 pounds and getting down to 215. “I still had a long way to go,” she said, revealing that according to her BMI, her healthy weight range is 140 to 160. You can benchmark your progress with this useful Lean Body Mass Calculator.

Then, She Eliminated Processed Foods

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In 2022, she really changed the game. “That's where the real change began. I eliminated all processed foods and only shopped the outside skirts of the grocery store. So protein, dairy, fruits and veggies. That was my main diet,” she said.

She Also Tracked and Measured Her Food

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“I tracked everything I ate with my Fitness Pal. I measured everything I ate. I prioritized getting that water in, and I minimized fast food or eating out because of the amount of sodium that they put in the food. Once I implemented that change, my weight just started to fall off,” she continues.

The First Month Was Hard, But It Got Easier

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“Now, I will say it wasn't easy. I'm not going to lie to you. It is the hardest thing I ever had to do, and it took me about a full month of getting through the diet change for me to really accept it. After that, I stopped craving chocolate or candy or ice cream, and I was able to just go with the flow on average. I was losing about a pound and a half to two pounds a week, and it just started to fall off,” she says.

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She Also Started Walking 30 Minutes a Day

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“Another thing that I did that helped me lose the weight was walking 30 minutes a day. That was huge,” she admits. “I thought I had to go kill myself in another OrangeTheory class or maybe at a boot camp. But walking truly helped me, along with some YouTube videos, like different weights that I could use or different strength training videos that really helped, too. But I didn't have to pay for a gym membership. I just got outside and walked and changed my diet, and the weight started to fall off. “

She Has Maintained the Weight Loss

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She has managed to keep it off by maintaining the same eating habits, “still walking 30 minutes a day, along with definitely having my treat meals and trying to balance them out, and so far it's kept the weight off beautifully,” she says. And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.

You can lose weight – one little eating hack at a time. Carla (@HalfofCarla) is a weight loss warrior who lost over half her body weight – a whopping 180 pounds – by making a few key healthy changes. In a new YouTube video, she reveals a few simple eating hacks that were a key part of her success. “Weight loss is hard, and I've lost over half my body weight, so I know, “ she says in the clip. “I've come up with a couple of hacks that helped me to lose 180 pounds, and hopefully, they might help you. If you're new here, my name is Carla. I make videos about how I show up for myself and hope to inspire you to do the same,” she continues. “In today's video, I'm going to be sharing with you five different simple hacks that you can do that might help you on your weight loss journey.”

Hack 1: Plate (Or Bowl) Everything

“Number one. We have a simple rule in this household that everything that you eat must be on a plate,” she says in the post. “The reason is, what happens when we want something to eat is that we often get triggered by the idea, or we're walking around the kitchen and we're like, Hmm, I could do with a little bit of something. You know, I'm, I'm a bit peckish. And before you know it, you've grabbed the entire bag of granola, you've eaten half of it, and you're still looking for something to eat even though you've just eaten all of this. Basically, what's happening is that our mind is not catching up with the fact that we're eating something. We're not present in what we're doing. So in order to do that, to put a delay between that, just scoffing it into our mouth and realizing that we're eating something, we're going to put it on a plate or on a bowl.”

And, Sit and Eat with Utensils

“Making sure that it is on either a bowl or a plate is going to stop you from just automatically reaching and eating all of this, measuring it out, weighing it out, and putting that delay in. So your mind is becoming more present and becoming more aware that you are about to eat something, and then you're going to eat it,” she says. A hack that goes along with this? “You got to sit the fork down to eat your food. No standing around in the kitchen, scoffing piles of granola, into your mouth. It's against all the rules. I'm standing, and it's not on a plate,” she says.

Hack 2: Proportion Your Snacks

Her second hack is to start proportioning your snacks. “If we think that we are not able to eat any kind of sweet or sugary thing or anything nice while we're losing weight, we're probably going to feel really deprived. And that's not what we want to do here. We want to ensure that we can deal with it and work within our lifestyle. So we're creating new habits that allow us to maintain that weight when we get into maintenance. Because if we deprive ourselves for however long it's going to take us to lose weight and say, you cannot have that chocolate bar until you finish weight, until you finish losing weight,” she says. Once you use it, you will overindulge.

You Can Even Do This with Candy

Instead, you want to find ways to make weight loss sustainable, and proportioning can help. For example, put Halloween candy into little bags and know exactly how many calories are in each bag. “Then, when you are planning your meal, which is important for your week, you can leave 160 calories worth of room for your snacks. You can put it on here, label it, and then put them away,” she says.

Hack 3: 20 Minute Snacking Rule

“Number three in a similar vein is to do with snacking,” she says, noting that it was a “game changer” for her weight loss. “This is the thing that helped me to still feel satisfied, but stopped any kind of binge overeating tendencies that I might have had.”

It Will Help You Avoid Binging

“Can I do the 20-minute rule? Can I wait 20 minutes now and see how I feel after this? Give it 20 minutes. See how you feel. It's a lot easier to do that than just to keep dipping your hand into the big all bag, especially if it's something that's like triggery,” she says.

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Hack 4: Do Not Eat Sweets on an Empty Station

Number four, then is not so much a hack. It is a piece of life advice that I have learned in the last five years of losing weight and maintaining weight: Guys, do not eat sweets on an empty stomach. Don't eat sweets on an empty stomach,” she says.

Smart Ways to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth

While you can eat sweets, “please don't let that be the thing that you reach for when you are hungry, because if you do that, your body will spike your blood sugar, and then all you're going to want is to, you're going to crave sugar,” she says. “If you want to eat something sweet, make sure that you have it either after your dinner or after you've had a meal or worst case scenario, have at least a piece of fruit, like a banana or something like that, and then have the chocolate bar have the packet of, of the chocolate, the sweets, whatever it is, the jellies, whatever it is for you.”

Hack 5: Have Snacks for When You Are Cooking

“The last little one is something I'm particularly proud of. It's something that helped me a lot during weight loss and made life so much easier for myself. That is to cut up and to have a snack that is dedicated to snacking while cooking,” she says. She points out that when making meals, while you are hungry, you are likely to grab unhealthy food and snacks.

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Veggies Are Great for This

“What I'm going to do is I'm going to take a wee pepper, something like a pepper, a cucumber, cherry tomatoes, an orange, something like that, some fruit or vegetable that I'm going to cut up first. So the very first thing I'm going to do, and then I'm going to put it on my plate, and when I make my soup, I'm going to have that, and that is going to be my snack while I'm preparing my food,” she says. That way, she will avoid grabbing granola, bread, or another not-as-healthy option. And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.

Are your unhealthy habits preventing you from losing weight? According to one expert, you should take a look at yours. Fitness and nutrition coach Alexandra (@alexx.fitt) has amassed a following on TikTok and Instagram by sharing videos about losing 40 pounds. In a recent video, she reveals a few bad habits that she ditched to achieve weight loss success finally. “5 things I stopped doing to lose 40lbs,” she writes in the post.

She Stopped Following Trends

Just because it’s trendy doesn’t mean it will help you lose weight. “I stopped following trends,” Alex revealed. “These days, whether it’s running, Pilates Princess is all a trend. You can do it all. The secret is finding what works for you and sticking to it,” she says in her post.

She Stopped Snacking on “Everything in Sight”

Snacking isn’t always bad. However, it can be. “I stopped snacking on everything in sight. I used to be the person who would have a bite of everything. Little did I know it adds up quickly,” Alex writes.

She Stopped Being Lazy

Sedentary behavior won’t help you lose weight, says Alex. “I stopped being lazy. I simply began walking everywhere, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, etc,” she reveals.

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She Stopped Setting Strict Goals

Are your diet and fitness goals too rigid? “I stopped having strict goals. I used to think I could lose 2 lbs a week consistently. But realistically, your weight will fluctuate, and setting weight goals puts way too much pressure on me,” she writes.

She Stopped Restricting Herself

Crash diets and avoiding food you actually like aren’t the key to losing weight, according to the influencer. “I stopped restricting myself and learned how to have portion control. Enjoy dessert in moderation,” she says.

She “Ate the Same Meals Every Single Day”

So, what did she eat to lose weight? “For 1-2 months, I ate the same meals every single day. Why? Because I was confused, I didn’t know what to eat or where to start, so I ate the same thing every day,” Alexandra confessed in another post.

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Here Is Her Weight Loss Breakfast

On her weight loss journey, Alex had two breakfast options. One “would always be oatmeal with a scoop of protein powder and brandy butter,” she reveals. The second? Eggs with turkey bacon, veggies, and a bagel.

Here Is Her Weight Loss Lunch

You don’t have to stick to salads to lose weight, according to Alex. “I’d usually eat some type of wrap/ sandwich. I’d add mayo, turkey, ham, salami, cheese, and a bunch of veggies,” she writes.

Here Are Her Weight Loss Snacks

Alexandra had a few go-to snacks while losing weight. “I’d have a protein bar, protein shake, fruit, yogurt bowls, bagels with cream cheese, snack plates, and anything I was craving that day. I just made sure it was a decent portion,” she says.

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Here Is Her Weight Loss Dinner

For dinner, while losing weight, she “would switch things up” and gravitated toward bowls. She would “add a bunch of lettuce, rice and either ground turkey, chicken, ground beef, any kind of protein and I’d add toppings like tortilla chips, Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, salsa, cheese ugh they’re so good and so filling,” she says. And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.