Name: Katie Hug
Age: 33
Hometown: Kuna, Idaho
Before Weight: 122.5
After Weight: 60.3
During college, a junk-food-heavy diet and a list of 12 meds for anxiety and depression caused Katie’s weight to creep up. “The drugs made me sluggish. I ate everything in sight,” Katie says in Take It All Off! Keep It All Off!, a time-tested playbook packed with stories and secrets from Women’s Health readers who dropped 20, 50, even 100 pounds!
But that was just the start. Three kids later, Katie had reached 122.5 kilograms.
Wake-Up Call: At a checkup in 2012, Katie’s physician delivered some unpleasant news. “She said I was morbidly obese, which was horrible to hear.”
Success Secrets: Her first step was enlisting a psychiatrist to help her taper off her meds. Eliminating the drugs “was like coming out of a zonked-out fog,” she says.
Katie started walking around her block each morning. It was a small habit, but it was one she knew she could stick to. She also tracked her calories with an app. “I had no idea I was eating around 5,000 a day. I cut that in half,” she says. By swapping pasta and refined grains for chicken, turkey, fish, and veggies, Katie dropped 18 kilograms in a year.
After upping her walks to 4.8 kilometres, she started jogging and got a trainer, who prescribed strength training routines that helped her crack 75 kilograms. She found ways to keep her workouts fun and motivating, too. “Instead of using machines at the gym, I flipped tires and pull weighted sleds.”
Katie finished her first half-marathon in September 2014. She whittled her calorie count down to 1,800 a day and focused on adding protein and limited unhealthy fats, two tenets of the Take It All Off! Keep It All Off! plan from Women’s Health. “I made high-protein pancakes by adding egg whites and cottage cheese and had vinaigrette instead of ranch dressing,” she says.
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She plans ahead, as well. “Weeknights are busy, so I make sure to prep on Sundays. I wake up early, buy groceries, and dance in the kitchen as I cook.”
By June 2015, she weighed 60.3 kilograms—less than half her starting weight—and was wearing a size 4. Even more importantly: Katie felt loads calmer and happier.
For more inspiring and innovative weight-loss strategies from women just like you, check out our new book Take It All Off! Keep It All Off!. It isn’t a diet—it’s a lifestyle makeover that provides you with all the nutrition and fitness tools you need to keep the weight off for the long haul!
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