A 37-year-old woman, from Hunstville, Alabama, has lost over 140lbs after she couldn’t fit into a plane seat.
Renatta Keith struggled with her weight after losing her mother to drug addiction, her brother to alcoholism and her father to Parkinson’s Disease.
She would eat to cope with the sadness and weighed 290lbs at her heaviest.
However, after she couldn’t fit into a plane seat two years ago and had to request a seat-belt extender, she decided to make changes in her lifestyle.
After her spinal surgery, the mother-of-one started a Ketogenic diet. She started working out thrice a week and lost over 140 lbs and went from 290lbs to 150lbs in two years.
Renatta lost her mother to drug addiction in 2009 and her father, who served a soldier in Iraq, died after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
She then lost her brother to alcoholism and turned to emotional eating to deal with the pain.
She would eat drive-through meals, sugary high-calorie foods and almost an entire liter of Coke a day.
Renatta said: “I experienced the sudden loss of my mother out of the blue in 2009. She had been hiding an opioid addiction from the family and it got out of control really quickly.”
“In 2012, my father came home from Iraq and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. One day I had found him dead and began eating to deal with the grief.”
But, when she couldn’t fit into a plane seat, she felt humiliated and knew it was time to make a change in her lifestyle.
She cut out diet soda completely and adapted to a low-carb diet.
She said once she started working out and eating well, she felt really good and more energetic.
She said: “I feel reborn, funny because that’s what my name means! I feel free. All the energy I spent wanting to lose weight is now used enjoying my life.”
She is now sharing her story on her Instagram page to motivate people who are planning to start their weight loss journey.
She said: “I got the confidence to share my story and be vulnerable so maybe someone else could find their way to healing.”
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