How I lost over 80lbs *naturally* | Weight Loss Transformation

hey guys welcome back and welcome if you're new I'm so glad that you're here today we are going to sit down I can't believe I'm filming this video it's crazy but we're going to sit down and I'm going to share just a health Journey update um if you don't know if you're new I have been on a health Journey since January of 2023 now it is October the end of October so we're rounding out the year which is crazy and I wanted to just kind of take some time reflect answer questions that I get asked quite often in comments and in DMS on Instagram and just have a place to be able to look back on and share this first year and what the journey looked like how I lost a little over 80 lbs so far in the year what I did how I did it naturally with just diet and exercise and um yeah we're going to sit down and talk about all of that today I'm super excited I will put a big disclaimer on this video um please bear with me I am definitely out of my comfort zone here I am not a licensed healthare professional a doctor dietitian any of those things so please seek medical advice before you change your diet and lifestyle I am just a regular person I'm a mom of three kids and I've been on this journey now for a little over 9 months and I can say that my life looks so different and I'm so thankful for the journey so I just want to share what's worked for me and I know what worked for me may not work for everyone but I thought if I can encourage somebody today then this video will be worth it so if you are excited to hear about my health Journey how I got started What I've Done um and what it's looked like over the last N9 months be sure to get comfortable today maybe grab a snack or a coffee cuz it might be a longer one and let's get started so before we dive into the how I lost the weight um let's backtrack a little bit and talk about the why and really just talk about my life prior to January 2023 so in my childhood and Adolescence and even into my young adult life life I was not overweight I did not have a history of being overweight I lived a very active busy lifestyle my diet was not perfect by any means but I was never overweight and in fact um I played college tennis and prior to that I trained at a very high caliber as a junior competitive tennis player so I was not new to the concept of training my body of physical exercise at all um but life happens you graduate from college you get married you settle down and the weight probably crept little bit at a time maybe year by year maybe it was 5 lb or 2 lb um but it wasn't until after having three babies in 3 years that my body really started to put on weight um I noticed that I was eating all the same things but my pants weren't fitting and I was really struggling to bounce back after my third baby and then you mix that with being postpartum and the pandemic hitting and I was just not living an active lifestyle at that point um and I put on in a span of about 2 years I think I put on about 60 lbs or so give or take you know over time I let that weight slowly creep up on me and until a point where um it started getting very noticeable all of a sudden my size went up several numbers um I was having to shop in the plus-size section for the first time in my life I was so ashamed and insecure in my body for the first time ever and um you know I let it get to a point that I'm just really like to this day I can't believe even happened and so at my heaviest um granted I I'm 5'6 to give you some context at my heaviest I got to about 230 lbs which I'll share you know some before Clips here and funny enough I don't have that many before photos cuz I never thought I'd lose weight ever but um obviously this is vulnerable for me to share but you know this is where I was at this was the reality I was putting on weight like crazy um I felt like my hormones were really out of balance I was no longer getting a period um crazy things were happening to my body and I could feel it my knees hurt things that shouldn't be happening in your late 20s in early 30s started happening and I was scared I was scared for my health and I was insecure and I didn't want to be the mom on the sidelines growing up I dreamed of having children someday and I had them I had these three beautiful children these blessings and I wanted to be an active mom so bad I didn't want to waste the younger years on the sidelines missing out playing with them running with them hiking with them biking with them doing all the fun active things with them because of my insecurity and because of the weight I put on and I think I just kind of got to a breaking point I got on the scale for the first time and a a very long time saw that number of I think it was 228 lb was my technical starting weight um and I just couldn't believe it and I talked to Caleb my husband and I said you know what something needs to change and I don't know how I'm going to do it but I'm going to figure it out and so that's really kind of the back story and the buildup of getting to the beginning and the rest of all the good stuff so that's everything leading up to January of 2023 and kind of where I was at so like I just said that was everything leading up to the weight gain getting to kind of my highest point and really it was a combination of things that brought me to my why and getting started like I said I really wanted to just be healthy for my kids more than anything also healthy for myself you can't pour from an empty cup and and um now I know for a fact that if I'm healthy if I'm doing the right things if I'm taking the time for myself then in turn I'm going to be a better mom and a better wife I didn't realize that before and a big part of that was you know mental health and finding a lot of Hope in therapy and I've talked about them several times on my channel recently and I'm so grateful to them for wanting to partner with me specifically in this video today um but I wanted to just take a quick second before we dive into the rest of the video and thank today's video sponsor betterhelp betterhelp is on a mission to make therapy more affordable and accessible because I know I live in a rural area and finding therapy in my area not an easy task I'm also a major home body so being able to find therapy and the comfort of my own home is a huge perk um when look looking for someone to talk to I love that I can just be at home in my PJs on the couch in my comfortable space to be vulnerable and be open has been a game Cher and I cannot thank my therapist enough you know she's really showed me on this health Journey that you know as women we juggle so much our kids our husbands our homes our jobs our health and our stuff we got going on you cannot juggle it all of effectively without first caring for yourself mentally and physically and I'm just so grateful to her and I feel like you guys deserve this therapy too I think anyone and everyone can benefit from therapy and I'm so grateful for better help for helping me find a great therapist but all you have to do to get matched with a therapist is go down to the link in my description you will fill out a few questions questions and you will be matched with a therapist in as little as just a couple of days and just so you know finding a therapist can be a little bit like dating you might have to try a couple of out before you find the right match and find that person that just really gels well with you that you feel comfortable with cuz that's really important too people spend hours in the gym every week myself included why not give your mind that kind of attention I just think that mindset shift is important to have so if you're interested in therapy consider betterhelp again use that link down in my description below better help.com Amy Fritz not only will you get 10% off by clicking the link in my description on your first month's therapy but you'll also be supporting me and my channel and I'm forever grateful to you so again a big thanks to betterhelp for sponsoring today's video the first thing I I did when getting started was telling someone that is the number one tip I could recommend if anything worked for me in this process it was tell someone maybe tell two people get some accountability not only did I have a heart to- heart with my husband which was very helpful and very sweet but I told a friend I told a friend where I was at I told a friend what my goals were and what I wanted um but when you have accountability when you have you know someone you can just text once a day and say hey how's it going I I you know chose this for lunch today and I'm feeling really good about it or I drank my water today how are you doing that helps so much whether it's a loved one a friend a relative whoever it might be find yourself a buddy to do the journey with because we weren't meant to do it alone and you need support you need Community you need somebody to come alongside you and help you on the journey so that would be my number one tip in getting started is tell someone the next thing I would say if you want to get started on a health Journey or you have some weight to lose is to start tracking everything that you eat and consume in a day even before you change your diet don't change anything just for a week track everything on an app like my fitness F that's what I use I use the free version um just to see where you're at it's hard to know what your deficit is at or what your Surplus is at if you don't know how many calories you're consuming on any given day might feel super tedious at first um but once you get a hang of it and know you know oh I know how much this is I know how much this is It's a breeze it takes 2 minutes you know for each meal time maybe and you have to track thoroughly let's say you had sauteed um green beans that's a great example someone might put in green beans which is only you know 30 calories for a cup but you have to factor in did you use a tablespoon of butter that's another 100 calories did you use 2 tablespoons of olive oil that's another couple hundred calories you have to add everything that you cook with and like I said sounds tedious but just do it for a week just to see where you're at and you might be blown away by what your Surplus is or you know how little maybe you're eating maybe you're not eating enough you don't know until you track it so just do it for a week and see where you're at but once you do that once you kind of see I would encourage you go to calculator.net I'll put it right here and I will link it down in the description below but this is the tool that I used to find my calories depending on what my goal is so you go to the link you put in your weight your height your age your gender all that good stuffff and it will give you what your maintenance calories are um it'll give you your calorie for mild weight loss for Extreme Weight Loss there's a bunch of different ones and you can just track depending on what your goals are so I tracked everything I went into that website I figured out my numbers and I just stuck with it no matter what of course I enjoyed a treat every once in a while but I just factored it in on the day as a whole I would not go over that number no matter what and over a period of time if you're in a deficit of 500 calories 1,000 calories over several months you're going to see the weight come off that's just basic science track every little thing you put in your mouth for a week figure out you know where you're at then I would encourage you to keep track cing as you're trying to lose weight you would be amazed at the number of calories and things you just don't think about the numbers really add up so if anybody comes to me now and says hey I want to lose a few pounds what should I do track your calories got to track them it's not fun but you got to do it okay so we talked about tracking we talked about getting accountability what's next I would say another huge factor in my weight loss early on was setting a goal for myself to drink a gallon of water a day say half of your weight in ounces should be your water intake on any given day I started swapping any and all drinks that I was consuming granted I was consuming a lot of calories and sugary things like sweet tea and soda and so just swapping those out for water alone I think I would have seen the scale start to drop um you know really limiting the liquid calorie consump consumption other than the occasional um coffee drink and I did still have my coffee in the morning but other than that water and lots and lots of it lots of water I had a relative that her and I would text each other our water every morning and you know we would make sure that we were drinking our gallon and we would hold each other accountable again going back to that accountability it worked wonders drinking water I just leave a mason jar right by my fridge and anytime I go into the kitchen I fill it up 8 oz chug it back and just get it in and I found that that works really well for me just finding simple ways to get more water in if you like sparkling water that's another great way I love spin drift cuz it has natural fruit juice in it um but some of the other ones are fine too of course we always keep the fridge stocked with lots of sparkling water and just consume a ton of it I got a lot of questions about did I follow any specific diet what foods did you eat um did you do intermittent fasting kind of all of that stuff I'm going to group together we talked about calorie counting which is separate in my opinion um but now let's really talk about the diet changes that I made not follow a specific diet I did not follow keto or carnivore or low carb or um you know I don't know whatever paleo I didn't follow anything like that um I will say I aimed for and still do aim for high protein so I aim for right now about 100 gram of protein a day that is crucial to fat loss and I'm also lifting more weights now so um it's just more beneficial in that aspect but high protein lots of fiber through cooked veggies through raw veggies through fruits um whole grains I um got a lot of comments about me being low carb which is true I I will say at dinner time I aim for a lower carb diet part I stick to lean meats and veggies for dinner just cuz I found that makes me feel better the next day I aim to get most of my carb consumption at breakfast and lunch right now um but I was not following anything specific and that's the beauty of kind of calorie counting versus following a diet to me was that if I wanted to eat a sandwich with bread I could eat a sandwich with bread I just had to track it if I wanted to eat a piece of pizza I could I just had to track it um but overall I would say I cut out a ton of processed food I tried to limit fried foods um I really tried to eat lots of whole food nutrition and really focused on the things I could have and the things I wanted to enjoy versus restricting myself to any specific food group aside from that that I got a lot of questions about intermittent fasting and how that worked and if I'm still doing it if I'm still enjoying it so um it's hard being this far in like 9 months into the journey the intermittent fasting has changed a lot but going back to when I first started on my journey yes it worked beautifully it helped me um eat less because I was eating two meals a day instead of three um so in theory of of course you're going to cut your calories by a third in concept doing intermittent fasting um and it helped me prevent nighttime snacking it got me out of the habit of nighttime snacking which I think is the biggest win for intermittent fasting for me personally My fasting window was 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m. every day and it worked really beautifully for me what am I doing now um I would say is more intuitive eating um um I in the morning if I am not hungry I continue my fast which I do still start around 6 p.m. most nights I will continue my fast and just wait until lunch and have a really high protein big kind of lunch brunch around 11:00 if I wake up now in the morning and I lift weights and I go for a run and I come home and it's 9:00 and I am ravenous and starving I eat so now it looks a little bit different but I will say at the beginning it worked really beautiful for me in helping me stay in a calorie deficit and it also helped me with nighttime snacking and speaking of snacking you have to find hacks you have to find things that you love and enjoy eating and you have to find healthy alternatives at some of your favorite places to eat that was crucial to me for instance my kids my family we love Chick-fil-A we're big Chick-fil-A fans in the fritz house and it's funny looking back back my typical Chick-fil-A order prior to 2023 was a spicy a chick a spicy chicken sandwich meal so you figure Fried Chicken you know white bun large fry always got a large fry and a Dr Pepper which a large Dr Pepper probably had 300 calories alone and who knows how many grams of sugar right it was probably easily a 1500 calorie meal and I was eating it all the time with the kids and the family now we don't go quite as often and when we do go to Chick-fil-A my typical order is a grilled sandwich meal I take off the bun and use lettuce it's just is delicious to me I still put sauce on it the honey roasted barbecue sauce I get a side salad instead of fries for my side but then I get a small fry so that I can nibble on a couple little fries just to enjoy it and I either get a diet lemonade or a diet soda or a water something that's zero calorie in my beverage so I went from regularly eating a high fat high sugar high carb starchy like 1,600 calorie meal there once or twice a week to now eating a 600 calorie meal that's high protein and has some fiber in it and so I'm still in enjoying the same Foods I'm still getting a few bites of waffle fries I'm still getting the sauce and the chicken it just looks different and finding ways to modify your favorite foods really is a game Cher that was kind of one silly example but like I love buffalo chicken anything I love wings and one thing that I do all the time is I use a carb friendly tortilla and I make a buffalo chicken pizza with rotisserie chicken and buffalo sauce and a little cheese it's low calorie it's high protein I eat it for lunch all the time finding ways to make your favorite foods just a little bit healthier that really helps let's talk now about exercise so this is probably the question I get asked the most often about actually in the weight loss Journey um my exercise Journey has been amazing I'm so grateful and I think more than anything I have truly fallen in love with Fitness again with health again with running again we'll get into and I've shared a couple of Clips here and on Instagram of kind of what my exercise Journey has looked like and has been but when I got started in January like I mentioned I was significantly overweight for my height I was very out of shape and I could not you know run or jog or anything like that so A friend of mine and I um we met at the gym three mornings a week and we walked at first it was just a nice brisk walk then as time went on I started increasing the incline which gives you such a great workout I don't know if you guys have heard of the 31230 it's a very popular treadmill workout 3 mph at 10 incline for 30 minutes if you are someone who's not in shape to run or jog or maybe you just don't have a desire to run or jog that's okay too this High Resistance incline walking on a treadmill is a game changer I got in shape pretty quickly I mean the weight hadn't come off yet but I could feel myself getting in better and better shape every single time I got on the treadmill so that was just three days a week when I first started maybe four um for a couple of months and then all of a sudden the weather turned right it's April it's May and here in Ohio that means we can finally be outside and enjoy some warm weather and I love Springtime it's like I come alive again all of the seasonal depression starts to wear off um although I will say having a health focus at the new year really helped my seasonal depression this year I think I'm going to kind of do a reset every year hopefully forever and just kind of stay focused on that through the winter to give me something to focus on but um spring rolled around the weather got nicer and I started going outside and I was um at that time working out alone um and I started kind of walking outside and go for a brisk walk here or there and then one day I was like I should start running again just kind of out of nowhere and because I had been doing so much incline walking I was in decent shape um I just kind of started jogging just little bits here and there it may have been 10 minutes at a time and then I just walk or you know Run 5 minutes and then walk I just did what my body could I pushed myself a little bit of course but um nothing crazy nothing you know out of this world and by the end of the month you know like I said I think I started the end of April by the end of May I was running probably about 3 miles or so at any given time a nice slow pace but for me running 3 miles was huge I hadn't run in years and so I decided to do something that would terrify me which it did and I went ahead and I said you know what I need something to push me I need something to motivate me all summer so I went ahead and I signed up for a fall half marathon being the girl that just a month prior was kind of walking still and just doing little 5 minute jogs so up for a half marathon I figured what's the worst that could happen I can't run it so I walk it right like that's literally the worst that could happen just sign up do it scared so I did it was the end of May I signed up it was the race was on September 10th and so that gave me kind of a tunnel vision Focus all summer I found some running plans on Pinterest nothing super professional or fancy about them uh I just kind of found a few and implemented all of them into one and ran anywhere from 2 to 5 miles a day Monday through Friday I'd run probably three or four times and then on Saturdays or Sundays depending on the weekend I would do one long run and it started at like 4 miles I think was my first long run working my way all the way up to 13 mil or 12 miles I'm sorry was the longest I got it and and so it's amazing just one week at a time building up your endurance adding on that mile to your long run and before I knew it I was able to run 6 miles pretty comfortably then 8 miles and I would be fatigued but I could do it and then in turn during the week my shorter runs turned into four five or six miles because I was building up that endurance and just truly falling in love with running again and I um I found that for me it just gives me such an endorphin high I definitely get Runners High I find that it gives me a ton of mental Clarity I find that it's very cathartic therapeutic to just put in my airpods listen to some good music or a good podcast and just run and it really is kind of my me time as a mom um it's the time in the day where I can just be and I can just go and I can just do and it's been incredible then sure enough race day rolled around and I ran my half marathon so 13.1 miles and I did it in an hour and 52 minutes and sub 2 was kind of a goal of mine in the back of my head but uh I never told anyone that so um finishing it at 152 was awesome I actually ended up placing third in my age group so that was incredible such a fun Testament and just a fun experience that hopefully I'll continue continue to do I have another race coming up in January and I've just kind of found I enjoy training for a race it keeps me accountable um it's fun it's competitive and it's just something that works and I say all of that to say you don't have to start training for marathons to get in shape or to exercise I think the moral of this story my story is that you have to find something you love if you going to do it every day or every couple days you want to enjoy it if you love lifting heavy weights get into strength training if you don't that's okay if you love Pilates if you love beer classes if you love spin classes or swimming or yoga whatever it is just get moving just do something active several times a week and find that thing that you love and if you haven't you know if you found that you don't love something yet you probably just haven't found it keep looking keep searching and you will find that thing you love then exercise will never feel like a chore and I really feel like that's the goal right and so find that thing that gets you up that gets you out the door that makes you excited I have found that for me it's kind of training for races and I'm just going to keep doing that while I enjoy it if there comes a time where I don't enjoy it then I'll stop and find something else but for right now I am running four to 5 days a week and then I lift weights 2 to 3 days a week just kind of depends but I do exercise as much as I can and try to stay fit and healthy as far as how I stay motivated 9 months in I think the most motivating thing for me is progress that keeps me going of course that's also my why um being more active having more fun with the kids feeling good in my skin while doing it is very motivating to want to stay healthy and happy and just feeling good because really that's that's what it's about and there are times where I feel good and the scale doesn't reflect that and I've learned that that's okay the scale is going to go up and down a little bit it just is that's life that's our body especially as females but if you're making the right choices and you feel good at the end of the day nothing else really matters right so that's my encouragement to you today I hope you found this video just fun and helpful um hopefully inspiring hopefully you got something from it I feel like I was a hot mess all over the place talking I tried to just kind of keep my points but you know like I said I'm no expert but if you did enjoy today's video please do me a favor and give it a big thumbs up maybe share it with a friend also I have a Weekly Newsletter I don't plug it often but I do share every single week usually just a little snippet of encouragement some of my favorite fines on the week some health and fitness updates there as well so sign up for that if you haven't And subscribe if you're new here today I would love to have you join my YouTube family while I share lots of homemaking and um decorating inspiration I really have had a lot of fun sharing more Health Fitness food related content and plan to do a lot more in the future so um again subscribe if you're new I would love to have you and I will see you guys really soon in my next video bye

Channel: Amy Fritz

Views: 763,470

Keywords: weight loss story, weight loss transformation, health journey, weight loss

Id: M3Jd1g55T1M

Length: 32min 1sec (1921 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 20 2023