Hi. I’m Bailey. I’m 18 years old. I’ve lost 160 pounds in the last two years, and now I look like this. It wasn’t easy at all. There were many obstacles
I had to overcome. Unfortunately, one of them was
my twin sister Summer. I’m going to tell my story
from the beginning, and hope it will inspire anyone
who wants to lose weight. Summer and I are identical twins. Even though we look the same,
our personalities are complete opposites. For example, I’m a total introvert. I like spending time on my own. Summer, however, likes to socialize. She always has people around. I’m not ambitious at all. But Summer is very competitive. She doesn’t like to lose even
when she’s playing a game. I’m quite messy. Summer is super neat and organized. I’m always late to places. She is always on time. Even though we’re twins, we’re not
the two halves of the same apple. We’re more like apples and oranges, totally different people. One thing we’re really
different in is appetite. You know how they say that some people live to eat
and others eat to live. I belong to the first group
because I live to eat. I think about what to have for dinner
when I’m having lunch. While Summer only eats
what she needs to live. In fact, she often forgets to eat. She gets full really quickly so she’s
always the first to leave the table. As you can guess, I’ve been
overweight since we were babies, and Summer has been skinny. In primary school, nobody
believed we were twins. “Impossible! You can’t be twins. You must be 3 or 4 years older”,
they’d say. I liked that they thought I was older. I’d piss Summer off, saying
“I grew up but you’re still a little girl”. When we started middle school,
I was really heavy for a kid that age. Summer weighed 75 pounds
while I weighed 165. After several negative experiences, I learned that being overweight wasn’t
something to be proud of. Being humiliated for my appearance
had become part of my daily routine. The boys in class came up
with new insults every day. When I got home, I’d go straight
to the bathroom and cry. The worst was when Summer joined in,
and started making fun of me too. During every meal, she’d say
something to upset me. “Watch out – don’t eat the plate” “I can’t believe that you can
still fit into a chair.” “Eat a bit less so that kids in Africa
can get some food” She became crueler towards me
as time passed. She was ashamed of me,
and made it known at every opportunity. My life became even harder
without my sister’s support. I didn’t have any friends. I was already an introvert,
and this made me totally asocial. You must have heard that twins
have a really strong bond. I felt this bond deeply, and I loved
my sister so much. Sadly, summer felt differently. I used to think that she loved me too. I thought, “She’s ashamed of me
because I’m obese. She rejects me because she doesn’t
want to be associated with me”. Maybe that was true in the past,
but she’d changed. It was obvious from everything
she did that she hated me. The girl who was constantly humiliated, who nobody wanted to be
friends with, was her twin. Honestly, I could see where
she was coming from. It was normal for her to hate me. Because even I hated myself. “If you had so many issues, why didn’t
you try to lose weight?” you might ask. You’re right. I should have lost weight. I knew that. I went on countless of diets
from childhood. None of them lasted longer than a day. I’d attack food the moment I got hungry. Now when I look back, I can tell that
it was totally normal. Because food was my escape. I only felt happy when I was eating. I had a terrible life. If I didn’t have the joy of eating,
I’d have nothing left. That’s why I couldn’t stop eating. Actually, I was depressed. Eating uncontrollably was my anti-depressant. So how did I manage to lose weight? Remember how I said I’m always
late to places? It’s hard to believe but that’s how I made
the decision that changed my life. Every time I tell this story,
first I cry and then I laugh. Let’s see if the same will happen now. I was turning 16 that day. Of course it was Summer’s birthday too. My grandparents were coming over. In the morning, my mom had said
“You need to be home by 5”. That’s what my mom always does. Every year she makes
our birthday party a surprise. She doesn’t mention the party. She just tells us what time
we need to be home. For the past 3 years, Summer and I
didn’t get each other presents. It’s like we had a silent agreement. We had stopped buying presents
to each other. But this was different. I’m sure Summer didn’t remember,
but we had promised each other years ago. We were in kindergarten then. One day, “When do you think we’ll be adults?” Summer had asked me. We knew that mom was pregnant
with us when she was 18. So if 18 was the age to be a mom
then 16 would be the start of adulthood. This meant our childhood
would be over at 16. So we’d need to buy each other adult gifts. And what is an adult gift? Flowers, of course. Dad always got mom flowers
on special occasions. Mom loved them. That meant adults loved flowers. Since we were going to be adults at 16, we decided we should buy
each other flowers. We promised that day that we’d buy
each other flowers on our 16th birthday. Years passed by and it was time for us
to keep our promise. Since I was late to everything, I bought the flower at the last minute. As I was walking towards
the subway stop to go home, I realized it was already 4.30. I needed to be home in 30 minutes. I got into the subway with
a huge bouquet in my hands. I was used to people staring at me
because of my weight. But the stares had doubled because of the
huge flowers I was carrying. It was 10 to 5 when I got off the subway. I wasn’t going to make it unless I ran. When I started running with my huge body,
the stares tripled. I was at the turnstile now. I was going to be away from
the staring crowd really soon. I hurried towards the turnstile. Oh my god! I couldn’t pass. I was stuck. Yes, I was stuck inside the turnstile. I couldn’t go forward or backwards. The people passing through
the turnstile were laughing at me. Some just stopped,
and started watching me. I began to cry. At the same time, I was trying
hard to get away. I was in such a pitiful state. A few people tried to help. A man pulled my hands,
while a woman pushed from behind. They managed to save me. In that chaos, the flowers got damaged,
and only the stems were left. I thanked my saviors. I threw away the stems. And I cried all the way home. At home, everybody was waiting for me. I couldn’t tell them that I got stuck in
the turnstile because I was so ashamed. We blew out the candles. Then guess what happened. Summer held my hands,
and took me to my room. There was a huge bouquet
of flowers on my bed. She hadn’t forgotten about it. I couldn’t say anything. I just hugged her and cried and cried. The next day was Saturday. I didn’t leave my room all day. In the afternoon, Summer came by. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “What?” I said. “This” she said and showed me
the video on her phone. Someone had videoed me stuck
in the turnstile and uploaded it to Youtube. And the video had gone viral. Almost 250 thousand people
watched it in a day. I could see clearly how the flowers
got damaged thanks to the video. They were trying to get me
out of the turnstile. I didn’t let go off the flowers
despite the chaos. Yet when I was free of the turnstile
all I had were the stems. It was funny but sad to see
at the same time. Now it was Summer’s turn
to hug me and cry. After this incident, I decided
to lose weight no matter what. I told Summer my decision right away. She held my hands, “We’ll do it together”, she said. We really did it together. I wouldn’t have been able
to do it without her. One of her friends’ mom is a nutritionist. She created a meal plan for me. I had to exercise too, but
the important thing was cutting calories. That meant eating less. It wasn’t easy to do. Like many things, losing weight
starts in the mind. If you start without convincing your mind,
it finds a way to trick you. So you can’t continue the diet. My suggestion for people like me
is to think about all the reasons why they need to lose weight, and make a list of them in a notebook. Don’t start before
you’re completely convinced. I still can’t believe I lost 160 pounds. When I started the diet, I was 275 pounds. Now I’m 115 pounds. I wanted to lose weight healthily
so I did in two years. But this came with a negative side effect. Continuously losing weight means
having to buy new clothes all the time. I had to change my entire wardrobe
every three months. That’s of course very expensive. Thankfully my dad really
supported me during this process. Last month we celebrated
our 18th birthday. My grandmother made us laugh a lot. She hugged me after we blew out the candles. She suddenly stopped. “I couldn’t reach all the way
around you before! Now I can!” she said She said it so naturally that
we all started laughing. Summer and I are getting along really well. I can feel that she still feels a little guilty. She is ashamed for the way
she treated me. But we were both kids back then. Just like any other kid, we had
the right to act foolishly. I ate like crazy and made
my childhood miserable. She ran away from a child
who made herself miserable. How could I expect her to love me
when I hated myself? Lastly.. Those who have problems
with their weight. Don’t wait until you get stuck in a turnstile. Like I said before, convince your mind, and take the steps you need
to lose weight. That’s all from me. If you like stories like mine, subscribe to this channel. See you. Bye!
