A woman who weighed more than 28 stone in her 20s has opened up about how one change allowed her to transform her body and her life after a doctor issued an urgent warning
Christy Collins didn’t realise how unhappy she was and how much her weight was holding her back until she underwent a massive transformation.
Weighing 28 stone (177.8kg) before her lifestyle change, 27-year-old Christy said that she’d always been confident and hadn’t really considered her weight a limiting factor until she went to the doctor.
It was then that Christy, who is from Essex but lives in Toronto, realised she would have to make a change to the way she lived.
Claiming she’s “been on a diet her whole life” thanks to being brought up by an “80s diet culture mum,” Christy knew that her relationship with food wasn’t the best – and when she started working on that, as well as her mental health, everything else fell into place.
“My whole life, I’ve been big. I don’t remember a time when I’ve not been big,” Christy shared, and she said losing weight had been “drilled” into her since she was very young. “I was in Weight Watchers at the age of nine, ten years old,” she admitted.
Christy said that dieting “never worked” as she’d “always just gain more weight”, and the more people would tell her she was overweight, the more food she would eat.
Christy said: “I was using food as a comfort thing and a coping thing, and my relationship with food wasn’t healthy. All I was thinking about was food, and it was the only thing that would give me any happiness.
“Probably towards the beginning of Covid, I did go to the doctor’s, and they were like ‘your size is not good’. My periods had stopped for four years; they said, ‘You’re not going to expect to live a full life if you keep going on the way you are,’ and it kinda shook me up a bit”.
Christy said from that moment onwards, she “prioritised” herself and how she felt. “I’ve never done it [weight loss] by the scales as such, just how I feel in myself,” she said, and not being restrictive is working for her.
She admitted she’s tried every diet in the book, sharing that “nothing works for longer than two weeks if you’re restricting yourself like that”. Christy said you’ve got to allow yourself to “live a life” as you “want to be involved” in fun things. Otherwise, the weight loss will not work long term.
Christy said: “I’ve really learned to listen to my body […] I’ve lost around 155lbs now […], and at the point of my biggest, I didn’t realise how low I was in myself and how it was taking over my whole life; what I could wear, how I’d feel in public, how others felt about me.
“When I focused my time and effort into other things like make-up, hair, hobbies, and friends, and separated the food thing, the happier I got and the easier it got for food not to be at the forefront of my life anymore.”
She admitted that she cares for herself now and, therefore, will not “sit and eat a whole packet of biscuits,” whereas before, she wouldn’t have thought twice about it. “I learned to love myself, but now I don’t want to do that.
“Working on my mental health has been the biggest thing […] and weight loss has been in the back of my mind. I’ve just been living life, but as I’m living life, the weight has been falling off me because I’m happy and have just been making little changes here and there.
“I’ve still been going out, I’ll still get McDonald’s, I’ll still go out for a drink with my friends […] I’m more active now. I actually love going for a walk, putting my headphones on, and having that time to myself every day. And I love being mindful. I’ve been meditating and upping my water, and I feel so good about it. Everything works hand in hand; everything has to link together for it to work.”
Christy highlighted that weight loss is not “an instant thing,” which is what many individuals try to make out on social media. “You’ve got to take it step by step. It really is a process.”
She said: “Say you’ve done it for a couple of months, you put a couple of month’s effort into yourself, and all of a sudden it all works together and you have lost a bit of weight naturally, and you feel better, and it all works like that”.
Right now, and in the future, Christy said she’s mainly focused on how her body feels, saying she’s “happy” with her size now (250lbs) and her clothes fit her well, so she’ll keep up the work with her fitness and see what happens and live the lifestyle she’s “created” for herself.
“I follow my body and my body’s telling me it’s healthy right now. I’m going out with my friends, I’m feeling good, I’m sleeping good, I’m productive with my day, my work,” she said, so she said she’d be continuing.
And to people who are starting out in their journey, Christy says, “It’s okay” and “You can do anything”. She said: “I’d tell them to focus on themselves and make a list of things that make them happy and hobbies they’d like to do. Find out your triggers – why are you eating a lot? Try and manage your mental health because I think if you manage that, weight loss will happen hand in hand.”
“This is the first time in my life that weight loss hasn’t been the centre of my life, and this is the only time I’ve lost weight,” Christy gushed. “You have to set it and forget it, the same as manifestation. You have to do the work around it, and then that thing will naturally happen,” she shared.