After the birth of her last daughter, Kristina Todd tipped the scales at over 300 pounds.

“I could barely walk to the park with my son, you know, I was feeling so uncomfortable,” Todd said.

As her health deteriorated and her self-confidence diminished, she decided it was time to act. Todd had been on diets before, but called them “yo-yo diets” – because they make it quick to lose weight but difficult to keep it off.

Todd began by analyzing her diet and eating better. She found that adopting a high-fat, low-carb diet called the ketogenic diet, she was able to eat healthier in a sustainable way.

She was able to lose over 120 pounds.

Thanks to the wealth of information available online, she found that she didn’t have to compromise on what she was eating.

“Once I kind of figured that out, it was like, I could do this for life,” Todd said.

Hope Adi, owner of Keto Eats and Treats in Waterloo, agrees. She also lost over 100 pounds after her pregnancy. “I would call it a diet but it’s actually more of a lifestyle, once you decide to do this, it’s something you should stick to,” she said.

Todd attributes her success to changing her diet first. She only began going to the gym after she had lost most of the weight.

“I was still so heavy that it hurt,” she said of working out. “I did walking and whatnot, but it had to be really light.”

“75 per cent of what you do is outside of the gym,” said Patryk Blaszkowski, a fitness instructor at Planet Fitness Kitchener. For the other 25 per cent, he recommends cardio and weight-lifting to help lose weight.

After such extreme weight loss, Todd had excessive loose skin that she wanted to deal with. That’s when she joined a gym near her house.

“There was no reason not to do it,” she said about her gym, which is open 24 hours per day.

As someone used to dieting and failing, Todd found success by posting on Instagram, where she found a very supportive community.

Her advice to those who want to lose weight is to start by cutting out pure sugar, to reward themselves for milestones, and to be accountable to someone.