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Shelli Johnson has had a long and sometimes difficult journey with her weight, which she remembers starting at age six. For decades, she experimented with yo-yo dieting, but she always gained the weight back. At points, Shelli also struggled with an eating disorder (bulimia and compulsive overeating).
However, 10 years ago, Shelli changed her perspective when it came to how she viewed herself and her weight–and she has managed to lose 175 pounds since.
At her heaviest, Shelli weighed over 300 pounds, but after switching her mindset around diet, exercise, and herself, she now weighs around 134 pounds (though her weight fluctuates around that number). And she has kept the weight off for eight years now.
Losing around 175 pounds is no easy feat, but it wasn't the intense and limiting diets that yielded these results.
According to Shelli, it was a new focus on self-trust and respect that helped her mindset change: "I started trusting myself. I decided to trust myself implicitly: that I knew what I wanted and that I knew what I needed to do to get it. I also stopped telling myself that I couldn’t have it, didn’t deserve it, wasn’t worthy of it, and a plethora of other thoughts that were keeping me small and confined in a box of my own making."
"I also decided to start treating myself with respect, which meant not allowing others to treat me badly and also not allowing myself to treat me badly. That included not overeating, bingeing, purging and the like when what I really needed was some emotional release. I decided it was time to start listening to my body for guidance since all this outside advice I was getting about dieting and weight loss didn’t seem to be working for me," she continued.
One thing she now does is listen to what her body wants without judgement.
Shelli tells SheFinds, "Now I eat whatever my body is craving without judgment. I want a donut, I eat a donut. I want bread or pasta or cake or whatever, I simply eat it. I don’t count calories. I don’t have a list of “bad” foods. I just eat when I’m hungry, whatever it is my body is calling for, and stop when I’m full."
This also helped her overcome food guilt.
She adopts a similar strategy with exercise.
Shelli tells us, "I exercise but not like a maniac. I do yoga 3-4 times a week for my own relaxation. I lap swim 3-4 times a week. I train in Krav Maga, both for self-defense and stress relief. I don’t have any hard and set rules about exercising at all and if I miss a day, that’s okay. I don’t look at exercise as a way to burn calories anymore."
She adds, "My motto about exercise is: the right exercise for you is the one you’ll do."
To learn more about her story, check out her website!
