My Story – Chantel Hobbs
Lost nearly 200 pounds and has kept it off for over ten years!
I began my weight battle and addiction to food during childhood, watching my scale go up and down after repeated “dieting” attempts. For the next several years, I gave up the weight battle and at 21 years old married my high school sweetheart, Keith.
On February 1993, I walked down the aisle as a self-conscious, “plus sized” bride. Six months later my daughter Ashley was born. After her birth I enjoyed play dates, milkshakes, Oreos and being a new mommy while my weight escalated to more than 325 pounds.
Two years later, after the births of Kayla and Jake, I fell apart. Years of telling myself I was too busy to lose weight brought me to 350 pounds, and to living life like an Academy Award-winning actress, pretending my weight problem didn’t exist, while feeling trapped and tortured inside.
All day, every day, I felt ugly, pathetic and judged. Then, one night alone in my car, it hit me. I’d been treating my obesity like a disease, something uncontrollable. But unlike an illness, my situation was about choices. Crying out of desperation to God, I asked for His strength to fight this war, my personal and lifelong struggle.
At home I proclaimed to my husband the end of my dieting, sharing with him my decision to lose weight for good, then write a book to help others with what I discovered. He answered, “Do it. Then talk!”
Taking his challenge, I woke up the next morning determined to begin my new life. Since that day, despite circumstances and challenging out of my control, I’ve lost nearly 200 pounds and have kept it off for good! Gone is my fear of being fat again.
As people, we often fear the unknown, but we shouldn’t fear things that we, with God’s help, have the power to control. My life’s passion is to see the world “ditch dieting” for good! I know there are many who are frustrated and exhausted from the constant failure. But they can live and feel better.
My story can be their story!
Chantel Hobbs today…
The author of Never Say Diet, The Never Say Diet Personal Fitness Trainer and The One-Day Way, Chantel Hobbs is a motivational speaker, life coach, personal trainer, marathon runner wife and mother of four whose story has been featured on Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, 700 Club and on the covers of People and First magazines. She appears weekly on two fitness-themed radio programs and promotes her One-Day Way Learning System on television, fitness DVDs, recordings of inspirational music and downloadable motivational talks.