Mom loses 85 pounds in 8.5 months — thanks to 7 simple fixes

Health

By Tracy Swartz

She found a clear path to weight loss.

Crystel Saturday, an Atlanta-area mother of two, says a few simple lifestyle adjustments helped her lose 85 pounds in nearly nine months. She credits stopping nighttime eating, limiting herself to one non-water drink per day, reducing her food portions and brisk walking 15 to 30 miles per week.

“I had sort of gotten used to thinking that being heavy was exactly what I would be for the rest of my life, but then a switch flipped,” Saturday, 40, recently told the Atlanta Journal- Constitution.

“I was tired of the excuses and tired of feeling like trash. I was 39 and I had children who deserve the best from me,” she continued. “I was overwhelmed and depressed, but I decided to focus on one thing at a time. »

Today, Saturday has amassed nearly 70,000 followers on Instagram by sharing her weight loss journey, which began in January 2023, when she weighed 225 pounds.

She weighed 140 pounds in October 2023.

“The first step is to stop eating in the evening and leave four hours between dinner and bedtime,” explained Saturday in a February article.

The real estate agent told the AJC that her family, consisting of her husband Ryan and their two young sons, Levi and Jace, ate dinner at 5:30 or 6 p.m. and did not eat anything else until to go to bed.

She maintains a 16-hour fast between dinner and breakfast the next morning, noting on Instagram that she doesn’t count the coffee she drinks at 7:30 a.m.

“I don’t take my first bite until 10:30,” he told the AJC on Saturday. “I use water when I’m hungry and break the fast for special occasions, but the routine has become second nature.”

Saturday recommends drinking half your body weight in ounces of water, so if you weigh 200 pounds, you should consume 100 ounces of H2O per day. She also advises eliminating drinks other than water from the diet, with the exception of one per day. (Coffee doesn’t count.)

Other tips include tracking calories, limiting added sugar to 30 grams per day, and introducing weight training.

Saturday launched a Commit to Change program to help others lose weight and learn the healthy habits she’s been honing over the past 15 months.

“There is this demand to help people and I take that responsibility seriously,” he told the AJC on Saturday. “I say frankly that I am neither a trainer nor a nutritionist, nor am I an influencer. I help people in an intimate way, without influencing them for a moment, but by giving them tools that they can use for the rest of their lives.