I’ve been asked about my weight loss for a long time, so here it is. I’ve lost 95 pounds, in my mid to late 30s, with PCOS, and I’ve kept it off. And I didn’t become some super disciplined, clean eating, fitness obsessed version of myself. I think that’s the most important part of the story.

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Where I was

The weight started slowly, and then it went fast. Early 2022 was the beginning of the darkest period of my life so far. The weight was stacking on at a speed that genuinely scared me. I felt out of control, hopeless, and too exhausted to keep trying to change my body.

And then I got angry at it. Everyone is always needing something from me, and now not even my own body will support me? It was very victim mode. My life already felt unbearably hard, and I couldn’t handle my body becoming one more problem to fix.

One moment always stands out. I’d had a rare good day. One of my favorite songs came on and I started dancing around the house, and I decided to record it so I’d have this happy moment. When I watched it back, I had a full breakdown. I didn’t recognize myself.

I desperately wanted to lose the weight. But I did not have the capacity or the desire to overhaul my life.

The hormone piece was real

I was diagnosed with PCOS at 17, and I’ve struggled with hormones and weight my whole adult life. By my mid-30s my symptoms felt worse than ever. I knew I needed updated blood work and hormone testing, and I kept avoiding it, because when you’re drowning in survival mode, booking a doctor’s appointment is not on the list.

Eventually I got the testing done, and everything was imbalanced. I needed extra support. I also tried a medication for a short time that I’d been really excited about, and it turned out not to be right for me at all. Stopping it made me feel even more hopeless.

But even with everything going on hormonally, I knew there was another part I couldn’t ignore: my habits. I was drinking a lot of sugary cocktails, binge eating, and barely moving. Food and drinking were giving me relief during the worst time of my life. Getting healthy felt like adding another full-time job to an already heavy life. I didn’t want to become a super healthy person. I just wanted to feel better and stop gaining weight.

Small swaps, because it was all I could handle

I’ve always been all or nothing. Go big or go home. But this time small swaps were truly all I had in me, and looking back, it was the smartest way I could have done it. Some of this is going to sound stupidly simple. That’s the point.

• I swapped ranch for ketchup with my fries. Not exactly health food, but it was a start.
• I cut way down on cooking oil and used water to cook a lot of the time.
• Instead of expecting myself to make lunch and dinner, I made easy savory snack plates: eggs, lots of vegetables, hummus, tzatziki, cucumber dips. Lazy healthy girl behavior.
• I stopped keeping my vices in the house. I could still enjoy chicken fingers and fries out with friends. I just didn’t need them sitting at home.
• I deleted the food delivery apps from my phone.
• I slowed down and started actually tasting my food instead of inhaling it.

I wasn’t trying to make everything perfect. I was trying to make things slightly better and be okay with that. Telling myself “no, you can’t have this” would have triggered full rebellion mode.

Alcohol, without giving up my social life

Getting out with friends was one of the only things that made me feel good during that season. Trivia nights, darts, watching basketball. I work from home, and shutting the laptop to laugh with people for a few hours mattered. I wasn’t willing to give that up.

So I swapped sugary cocktails for drinks with no mixers, and slowly my go-to became whiskey, soda water, and two limes. I sipped more slowly. I started noticing why I was drinking. Sometimes I was having fun. Sometimes I was trying to escape my life. And I realized I could have one or two drinks instead of five or six and still have an amazing time. No shaming myself. Just noticing.

Later, after I’d already lost a good amount of weight, I got curious and went almost 10 months without alcohol while still going to all the same hangouts. Proving to myself that I could do that was really empowering.

The part that changed everything: my subconscious patterns

At the end of 2023 I was in my first certification program, learning about subconscious patterns, beliefs, and identity. This was the first thing I ever tried rewiring in myself.

I started studying myself instead of trying to immediately fix everything. If I stopped for fast food on the way home, I’d ask: What happened today? What was I feeling? What did that food give me? What was I avoiding? There was always a reason, and eventually I could see the patterns.

Then I started using what I was learning, mainly hypnosis and identity work, on myself. The version of me that felt familiar was the heavy one, the one who struggled with her body. I had years of evidence for that identity. I wasn’t changing my physiology with my thoughts. I was changing the patterns behind my actual choices.

The weirdest example: tea

I have never liked tea. But in my head, women who drink tea are healthy, fit, and put together. Every time I visualized the healthy version of me, she had a mug in her hands with the little tea bag tag hanging out the side. And I was like, what? I don’t even like tea.

So I made myself hypnosis recordings with suggestions about loving tea and how good a cup feels at the end of the night. I bought a couple boxes and kept them in a drawer. Within three weeks, I found myself genuinely craving it. I’ve been a tea drinker ever since.

The tea represented the healthier version of me. Drinking it made her feel familiar and real. I started identifying as her, and I was actively becoming her.

I still don’t love working out

You’d think if I could do that with tea, I’d do it with everything. Nope. I’ve never liked exercise, and honestly I still don’t. I haven’t cared enough to make rewiring that a priority. For me, movement is like doing the laundry. I’m not excited about it, but it needs to happen. Walking, Pilates, YouTube workouts at home, whatever fits.

You can lose weight and be healthy without being obsessed with fitness. You don’t have to love every habit that supports your health.

How I live now

Emotional eating is no longer my automatic response. I can count on one hand the times in the last few years I’ve eaten my feelings. I still have hard days. I’ve just built other ways to get the relief binge eating used to give me: seeing friends, a movie, getting out of the house, a good conversation, Netflix, going to bed.

I don’t have food guilt like I used to either. I had a steak quesadilla for lunch yesterday, loved every bite, and moved on. No compensating at dinner, no punishment workout. One meal doesn’t determine my health. What I do repeatedly does.

Wanting to change your body doesn’t mean you hate yourself

I think we’ve swung too far in the body positivity conversation. Wanting to lose weight doesn’t automatically mean you hate yourself. Noticing changes in your body doesn’t automatically mean you’re obsessive. Awareness and obsession are two completely different things.

I pay attention to how my body feels. If I notice changes, I make adjustments. No drama, no shame, no punishment. And if weighing yourself isn’t helpful for you, that’s valid too. You can genuinely accept yourself and still want to change something.

If you’re where I was

There were two parts to my situation, and there might be for you too:

• Things I needed more information about. Hormones, testing, symptoms, my medical health. Make the appointment. Get answers about your body instead of blaming yourself for things you don’t understand.
• Things I already knew I needed to do. Eat differently, move, cut back on sugar and alcohol, change how I coped. Look honestly at those, without demanding an enormous overhaul of yourself.

Ask what you’re genuinely capable of changing right now. If it’s swapping ranch for ketchup, that’s enough. And ask what your habits are giving you. Usually it’s relief. Relief from what? Once you know, you can look for other ways to meet that need.

I wish the woman I was at almost 270 pounds could have known she didn’t have to fix her whole life overnight. That being too exhausted to do it all at once would lead her to tiny, doable swaps, to noticing more about herself, to rewiring her brain and changing for good.

I didn’t have to become obsessed with being healthy to finally start taking care of myself. You don’t either.

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