An inspirational weight-loss journey – Natalie Linan

She grew up in Fairfield, a town towards Northern California, close to Napa and San Francisco. Natalie lived with her elder sister and parents. She enjoyed a great childhood, and her family was always supportive of her goals and dreams. They traveled every year without fail, which really opened her up to the world from a very young age. She gained perspective on how life is really short and how one must live every moment to the fullest. She realized one must be grateful for the gift called life.

While she realized the importance of traveling, having good relations, and being positive, she faced a problem with food and lifestyle. Natalie started gaining weight due to her food choices and portions. She resorted to overeating any time she was having a meal. Every meal left her uncontrollably full. She had developed an obsession with food, especially carbohydrate-rich food, wherein, in any circumstance, she found her solace in food. These habits soon became a problem for her, and she started gaining weight over time.

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All through her childhood, she wasn’t watching her weight too much. At the age of 10, she visited a doctor, and he remarked that she is at risk of Diabetes at the tender age of ten. This was when her parents were alarmed. They sent her to a nutritionist to help her watch her weight and eating habits. Unfortunately, even at that time, Natalie didn’t take it too seriously, and soon enough, her weight reached 205 lbs.

Few years down the line, when she started going to high school, she developed a fire to lose the excess weight she had gained in childhood. She wanted to feel good about how she looked and lived. She decided to watch what she ate and also started working out.

She started her workout with CrossFit at a gym. She used to visit the gym three nights a week. Soon she started seeing muscle appear on her body and noticed a slight weight loss. This motivated her, and she chose to incorporate balanced nutrition into her life. This gave her instant results, and soon, she joined a couple of gyms because she started enjoying working out. The results gave her a great feeling. She felt confidence oozing out of her like never before!

It took her a year to achieve more definitive results, and with three years of constant perseverance, she was at her target weight. She also aimed for more defined arms, abs, and lower body once she lost the excess weight. In the entire process, she lost a total of 50 lbs.

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Natalie faced a major challenge while she was at the peak of her weight loss journey. She became resistant to eating food and became obsessed with not eating. It became difficult for her to eat normally. She was addicted to weighing herself and counting her calories, which was challenging to let go of. Natalie was paranoid that if she eats, she might gain all the weight back! She did almost everything to avoid going back to her previous shape and life. Her mental health suffered due to all these reasons, and it took her a year and a half to come back to eating normal portions of food and develop better mental health. She also started practicing healthy habits such as meditation.

This personal journey has taught her a healthy approach to weight loss and the right mindset one should have to lose weight. She learned a lot about self-love and self-acceptance throughout those three years. She now coaches people who struggle with weight loss and always endorses a healthy way to do so, which reinstates the significance of mental health.

Many girls in high school started approaching her. They wanted her advice on weight loss, gaining confidence, being independent, and other such topics. When she began guiding these girls, Natalie realized a vital requirement of support and guidance, especially weight loss. She realized that home environments did not necessarily provide them mentor-like support, and these people would often lose the direction or get misguided. She was happy to help and became more excited to help others.

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This is where her actual journey started, and she began inviting these young girls to workout with her. She wanted to teach them, not just by words but by practice. She set a friendly environment where she took time to understand them and their goals better. After several such sessions, she was firing up a passion for motivating others using her words and actions.

At this point, Natalie decided to spread her knowledge, experience, tips, and weight loss information to a larger crowd. She started utilizing the perks of social media for this purpose. She documented her entire weight loss journey with relation to health, workout, nutrition, and positivity. Slowly yet steadily, she built a community that followed her advice and approach. Soon, she created a website and became more approachable to people who need advice for weight management.

Her journey was not easy. She had to cope up with the differing opinions of her friends and family. Her family was a bit apprehensive about her sharing so much personal information and journey on social media. But as they saw the overwhelming response she received in a short time, they started encouraging her.

Even today, she is often at the receiving end of hate comments from strangers and trolls on social media. Initially, she used to be hurt about their comments and opinions, but slowly she learned that these people know nothing about her life’s hardships and their opinion should not matter to her! She started ignoring them completely, and now she doesn’t care about such people.

Jay Shetty’s podcasts were a constant source of motivation for her, every single day. She learned to have an outlook that helped her in all situations and radiate positivity. The other source of motivation was a glance back at her journey. Seeing how far along she has come, the strides she took, the mental health battles she had fought– has motivated her to keep moving ahead. Natalie firmly believes that one can overcome everything with determination and hard work.

She consistently empowers others by showing them that they have the power to live the life they always wanted to! She also helps people build a positive growth mindset that can help them transform their lives altogether.

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Natalie believes that your potential should be un-capped, and you must only accept what you think you deserve and nothing less. She has observed that people make goals and once they achieve them, they celebrate and forget their purpose altogether.

It is vital to make sure you always set a new goal before you reach your previous one. Keep persevering till you achieve the next one, and so on. She believes that it is important to say YES to whatever comes your way and stay ready for everything. If one door closes, build a new one.