Several years ago, 36-year-old Misty Mitchell seldom thought about her weight. She lived a sedentary life at home and ate what she wanted each day – until she suffered from a herniated spinal disk that required surgery to be treated.
During her recovery, Mitchell recalled that her “weight gain exploded.”
“I was eating all day, then drinking all night, then because I was hungover I was eating badly – it was a terrible cycle and amounted to me consuming a lot of calories,” she explained.
“On my worst days I probably drank around half a liter of vodka, which equates to an additional 1,000 empty calories on top of my poor diet. … I wasn’t making healthy food choices… I ate constantly until my stomach hurt, then when it would ease up I would start eating again,” she added.
When Mitchell finally became well enough to begin leaving the house again, she realized that she was struggling to get into her car because of her bulk and tipped the scales at almost 300 pounds.
That was when she decided to turn her life around.
Mitchell cut out alcohol from her diet and then attacked the excess carbs she was consuming. Over time, she lost weight until she was only 159 pounds and reduced her body fat percentage from 60 to just 25.
Everyone who sees her is completely floored – including her family, who admits they barely recognize photos of her on Facebook.
“Before, I had a huge lizard chin and you couldn’t see my neck at all,” Michell described. Now, she’s incredibly proud of her defined jaw line and visible neck bones.
While at her heaviest, Mitchell was often taken to be middle aged, she’s now more often told that she looks 20 years younger and barely looks her age.
“Now I can do intense yoga positions and am incredibly flexible, it feels like I can do anything,” Mitchell said of herself.
And truly, it’s likely that she can do anything. Since losing weight, Mitchell has gone on to open her own weight loss company called Mind Your Macros. The program follows adheres to a ketogenic diet, or a low-carb diet, and offers encouragement to its followers through social media.
Mitchell is incredibly proud that she is able to help hundreds of people around the world on their own weight loss journeys after her own difficult battle. You can follow her on Instagram here.
