Fay­ola KJ Fras­er

Weight loss, a com­plex is­sue that many women con­tend with at some point in their lives, has al­ways been a top­ic of pop­u­lar dis­course in me­dia di­rect­ed at fe­male con­sumers.

Due to a va­ri­ety of phys­i­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences, women of­ten strug­gle sig­nif­i­cant­ly with weight loss, as op­posed to men, as fac­tors such as hor­mon­al fluc­tu­a­tions and im­bal­ances, preg­nan­cies, and so­ci­etal pres­sures can present a hin­drance.

Kathy-Ann Lewis, a 24 year old phys­i­cal train­er, suc­cess­ful­ly went through a jour­ney of weight loss - los­ing 100 pounds - and it has changed her life and lifestyle com­plete­ly.

Lewis grew up over­weight and strug­gled for many years to lose weight. As she came from a fam­i­ly of peo­ple - her moth­er and aunts - who faced their own strug­gles with obe­si­ty and di­a­betes, she nev­er felt par­tic­u­lar­ly big or out of place among her loved ones.

In 2017, on the cusp of fin­ish­ing sec­ondary school, she got her BMI checked, and at 5 feet 2 inch­es and 250 pounds, it was dan­ger­ous­ly high.

Dur­ing this phys­i­cal check, she was tagged as be­ing close to the thresh­old for de­vel­op­ing di­a­betes. This be­gan her for­ays in­to at­tempt­ing to lose weight, as she felt con­cerned about de­vel­op­ing the lifestyle ill­ness and the po­ten­tial re­sult­ing is­sues, such as los­ing a limb. Lewis al­so re­mem­bers, dur­ing that time of young wom­an­hood, feel­ing ashamed and em­bar­rassed to go out to par­ties and events with her friends, as she could not fit in­to the pop­u­lar cloth­ing and felt os­tracised, as she was not treat­ed with the same re­spect with which peo­ple treat­ed her friends.

In 2019, af­ter try­ing a few “quick fix­es” such as sup­ple­ments, star­va­tion, fat burn­ers and detox­es, Lewis felt frus­trat­ed at her failed at­tempts at los­ing weight and de­cid­ed sim­ply, “to not be big any­more”.

“I was look­ing for the easy way out at first,” she says. “But the sup­ple­ments and quick fix­es don’t teach you the dis­ci­pline to not on­ly lose the weight but keep it off.”

She re­mem­bers suf­fer­ing from se­ri­ous joint pain at the time, in her back and knees, which left her in tears many times. One day, she made the de­ci­sion to take charge of her di­et and lifestyle and be­gan to in­cor­po­rate wa­ter, ex­er­cise and sleep more so than ever.

By late 2019/ ear­ly 2020, she had lost 20 pounds, and al­ready be­gan to feel sig­nif­i­cant­ly dif­fer­ent both in her mind and body.

Then came the COVID-19 lock­down, where gyms were closed and out­door ac­tiv­i­ty was pro­hib­it­ed. Lewis re­mem­bers feel­ing dis­ap­point­ed and de­pressed that she could not sol­dier along in her ex­er­cise jour­ney, but tried her best to eat well and in­cor­po­rate move­ment where she could.

Dur­ing the al­most two years of lock­down, many peo­ple com­plained of the dread­ed “COVID-15”, which was the name used for weight gain that peo­ple ex­pe­ri­enced dur­ing this time of be­ing more seden­tary. Lewis, how­ev­er, nei­ther gained nor lost weight dur­ing those years.

When gyms and out­door ac­tiv­i­ty re­sumed, she be­gan her jour­ney again, re­newed with a dri­ve to con­tin­ue her weight loss.

When the re­stric­tions were lift­ed in 2022, Lewis adopt­ed the habits that she knew would help her con­tin­ue to lose weight. She re­mem­bers go­ing to the gym twice a day, and walk­ing there from her house at 5 am to get her steps in. She al­so em­ployed in­ter­mit­tent fast­ing and in­stead of di­et­ing, changed her ap­proach to eat­ing. She fo­cused on eat­ing low carbs, high pro­tein, veg­eta­bles, eggs and fruits as snacks, as well as en­sur­ing prop­er hy­dra­tion dai­ly.

Lewis re­calls the frus­tra­tion she felt ini­tial­ly af­ter the long break, feel­ing like a top spin­ning in mud, ex­haust­ed at restart­ing her weight loss jour­ney post-COVID yet again. Yet, once the pounds start­ed to come off, it re­newed and in­creased her mo­ti­va­tion. In 2022, she lost a to­tal of 80 pounds, and when she start­ed shed­ding weight so rapid­ly she was in dis­be­lief, even won­der­ing if she had an un­known ill­ness.

She now en­cour­ages peo­ple to un­der­stand that weight loss is not al­ways a straight road.

“Some months I would lose 12 pounds and the next month I would on­ly lose three,” she says.

In those months where she did not lose as much weight as she ex­pect­ed, she felt “man­ic and de­pressed” and al­most gave up. Lewis, how­ev­er, cred­its her faith in God for push­ing her to con­tin­ue on her jour­ney, as her prayers helped her gain the men­tal for­ti­tude she need­ed to forge for­ward.

Af­ter los­ing such a sig­nif­i­cant amount of weight, peo­ple be­gan look­ing to her for ad­vice and mo­ti­va­tion to help them. Through men­tor­ing oth­ers, and giv­ing them tips which ul­ti­mate­ly worked for them, she dis­cov­ered a love for per­son­al train­ing.

Now a per­son­al train­er with her busi­ness, Body Un­der Con­struc­tion” Lewis helps her clients lose weight and get stronger, fit­ter and health­i­er. As a holis­tic train­er, she en­cour­ages her clients to keep a jour­nal ded­i­cat­ed to their eat­ing, sleep qual­i­ty and ex­er­cise habits, as she views these all as puz­zle pieces to the over­all jour­ney of the in­di­vid­ual.

She feels “amaz­ing and blessed”, adding her dis­ci­pline and mo­ti­va­tion has of­fered her not on­ly a new body, but an im­proved mind­set and has changed the course of her life by giv­ing her di­rec­tion in her ca­reer.

Kathy-Ann Lewis’ Top Tips for Weight Loss

1) Dis­ci­pline and con­sis­ten­cy.

2) Stay­ing hy­drat­ed! Wa­ter is cru­cial, she drinks 3 litres a day.

3) Keep Mov­ing! Move your body dai­ly, it can be a walk, a jog or even a 30-min work­out on youtube.

4) Don’t start the jour­ney just for re­sults. Make it a change in your lifestyle.

5) Don’t make huge, in­tim­i­dat­ing goals, take it slow, dis­sect the goal and fo­cus on los­ing weight month by month, bit by bit.