A 44-year-old self-described ‘crisp addict’ who was 20 stone at her heaviest has revealed how she lost half her body weight without jabs or fad diets.
Lisa Bernett, from Boreham Wood in Hertfordshire, used to eat four bags of crisps a day, as well as two takeaways a week that cost £50 a week, and ‘huge’ portions of cheesy pasta.
At her heaviest, Lisa weighed 20st 5lbs, was a UK dress size 24 and struggled to walk up the stairs without getting out of breath.
She admitted that her poor diet and lack of knowledge around nutrition led to the weight gain, adding that she ‘didn’t realise a whole bag of crisps and a dip was probably my whole daily allowance for food’.
However, after her husband told Lisa he wanted to start his own weight loss journey, she decided to follow suit.
Lisa wanted to avoid using weight loss jabs like Mounjaro, and had previously tried fad diets without success – so she decided to start calorie counting using the app MyNetDiary.
Within two years of starting her journey, she had dropped from a size 24 to a size 8, shedding 10st 5lbs in total simply by changing her diet and exercising.
Lisa said she did not want to turn to jabs because she doesn’t ‘believe it teaches you about fat loss or educating yourself about food’.
‘It’s a good tool to have but if you have no other tools then how will you keep it off?’ she questioned.
‘There’s no way I would want to stay on injections for the rest of my life in the fear that if I stop I’ll gain. I also didn’t feel comfortable going down the surgery route.’
Lisa added: ‘When my husband said he wanted to lose weight that set the bells off.
‘I didn’t want him to be smaller than me, I’m quite old-fashioned and I thought, “If he’s smaller me than he can’t protect me”.’
Recalling her lifestyle before losing weight, Lisa said she did not do any exercise and would go about her day taking the children to school, going to work, and then ‘come home and sit on my backside’.
She admitted: ‘Walking, going up the stairs, it was hard. My knees hurt and I got out of breath really quickly.
‘Thankfully, I never had any health issues, but I got chest infections quite a lot.’
She knew that her diet was the first thing she had to address, as it was ‘poor’.
‘I wouldn’t ever eat breakfast. Lunchtime I’d either eat loads of pasta with cheese, or I’d have lots of bagels with cheese,’ she said.
‘For a snack I’d have a whole bag of crisps with a dip – I didn’t realise a whole bag of and a dip was probably my whole daily allowance for food.
‘I’d have a takeaway twice a week and big portions of home cooked meals. I always had to finish my plates.’
But using the calorie app has helped Lisa to ‘reeducate’ herself about food, she said, adding that she now knows ‘when I’m going to lose weight and when I’m not’.
Using the app has allowed her to continue eating bigger portions, but she now prioritises protein and fibre to improve her nutritional intake.
She swapped cheesy pasta for jacket potato with grilled chicken and salad; got into an exercise regime of 10,000 steps a day at the start; started going to the gym regularly; and sticks to a calorie goal each day.
The upheaval in her diet and exercise routines has helped her shed the pounds, and now Lisa said she is able to pick ‘anything’ off the clothing rack – a far cry from the days when she ‘hated’ shopping.
She said that while her portions remain big, they are filled with calorie-dense foods.
‘I prioritise my protein goal, fiber goal and a calorie goal. As long as I hit these goals then it doesn’t matter about my fat and carbs,’ she explains.
‘As soon as you cut out food, your body wants it. When people say they’re going to have 1,200 calories, it’s not sustainable and then you binge over the weekend.’
Incorporating a gym routine into her new lifestyle was not easy to start with, Lisa said, as she found it ‘overwhelming’ to walk into the gym and think that everyone was looking at her.
‘I got a gym membership, and I walked in and it was so overwhelming. You feel like everyone’s looking at you and I ran out crying.
‘So I got a PT, and I had him for three or four months. I liked the boxing part of it so I started Muay Thai which I did three times a week – sometimes five times a week.
‘Now I’m at another place where I have gym sessions and do martial arts every morning.
‘I do that Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then on Tuesday and Thursday I go to gym and do weights.’
She has also upped her step count goals, after walking 10,000 steps a day for three months, and now does 20,000 steps a day.
But the one thing Lisa said she has noticed since losing weight is that the people around her have ‘changed’ their attitudes towards her.
She explained: ‘A lot of people didn’t think I’d stick to it, and I get that as I’d probably think the same thing. I know there are other people who are waiting for me to put the weight back on.
‘People change when you lose weight,’ she lamented. ‘I’m not that fat friend anymore and everyone likes to have a fat friend.’
She also noticed that strangers are ‘nicer’ to her now that she has lost weight.
‘I eat properly during the week so I know I can have a big plate of food at a restaurant on Saturday, and I don’t feel like people are watching or judging me, but if I was big, they’d be judging me.’
However, Lisa now feels much more confident being in photos than she used to.
‘I used to hide in the back in photos, now I want to be in the front – I love it.’
Her advice for others looking to lose weight is to ‘take accountability’.
‘Not everyone’s perfect,’ she said. ‘Even on the days you find hard, and you want to reach out for something bad, do it, but weigh it and take accountability, then rein it back in the following day.’
