Losing a large amount of weight comes with consequences. One of the most obvious ones is the excess skin.
Stephanie Seabrook is no exception. When she was at her heaviest, she was 340 pounds.
“I thought I was going to die obese,” she said. “I couldn’t grasp it so I shut myself off from the world.
“I was embarrassed, I didn’t want people to know I had put weight on. I didn’t think of myself as fat so I couldn’t come to terms with it.”
But one day, she made a decision. She’d had enough, and she wasn’t going to let herself die. So she went for a walk.
“I kept walking until I couldn’t anymore. I ended up walking four miles,” she said. “I did it every night and lost 20 pounds in a week without changing anything about my diet. I realized I could do it.”
She made her goal to become a personal trainer. Through small lifestyle changes, and doing her nightly walks, she lost 80 pounds in 6 months. Now, she’s lost 150.
But after she’d lost quite a bit of the weight, it was clear that she would need to do something about all of the excess skin. So she decided to get a tummy tuck. But she wanted to do something important first.
“Before my tummy tuck, my mom came up with an idea. We wrote all the things I had said to myself, what others had said, all the negative words. Then the next day I went to surgery.”
Now that her tummy skin—and all the negative words—have been removed, Stephanie feels brand new.
“It completely changed my life,” she said. I didn’t mind the naked me. I had so much more self-confidence.”
She’s been sharing her story on Instagram, and she’s now a personal trainer.
“I became a personal trainer because I didn’t think most really understand what it felt like to be obese. But I don’t take my clients to the gym, we go outside and I show them that they can do it anywhere.”
She hopes to reduce stigma around obesity and help people get the fitness help they need.
“I always say it’s not what you’re eating, it’s what’s eating you.”
