For anyone who is conscious about their body (let's be honest, most of us are), you know that the parade of perfectly toned
fitness models on Instagram can be intimidating. While most of them use the platform to motivate themselves to keep working hard while "sharing their journey" and ultimately hoping to inspire others, we can't help but compare ourselves.
But what's even worse is being subjected to body-shaming and bullying. That was the case for 21-year-old Meghan Gilbert. Meghan is from Dallas, Texas, and due to an eating disorder as well as an extremely unhealthy lifestyle, Meghan's weight increased to 200 pounds in her late teens.
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This change in her appearance attracted awful bullying from her peers, who called her names like "thunder thighs". This then also lead to Meghan feeling worse and worse about herself, eventually being diagnosed with anxiety and depression.
Waking up one morning feeling extremely guilty about the night before, Meghan decided to take action and try to stop her negative thinking and harmful lifestyle by actually looking after herself.
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In response, Meghan stuck it to her haters and managed to drop the weight had she put on, and toned up to look the best she's ever been. Now, she's got 65,000 Instagram followers, several fitness brand endorsement deals under her belt, is so much
healthier and she looks AMAZING.
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At 128 pounds, she managed to go from a size 16 all the way to a zero. The 21-year-old attributes her dedication to the gym and, more importantly, her change in diet to the 72-pound loss.
Meghan says she started with "starvation diets" in order to lose the weight, only to find this left her feeling "constantly famished and exhausted". Instead, she took a different approach – choosing
healthier options and actually eating
more of the good stuff.
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"I revamped my eating habits, adding protein-packed meals, like chicken or eggs with a side of good carbs and veggies, to my diet," she told Health.
"I also started jogging-slash-walking for an hour and a half three times a week. Within two weeks I had more endurance, and my energy levels were up, too.
The real change came, though, when I began dating a personal trainer. With his help, I started hitting the gym twice a day, five times a week, doing cardio in the morning and strength training at night."
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After four months of hard work, Meghan had already dropped 65 pounds. Despite the incredible statistics, Megan says she doesn't obsess over it anymore.
"Today I no longer pay attention to the scale," she says. "I’m also more lenient with my diet—I eat healthy most of the time but treat myself when I want. I love that I found a balance that keeps me happy, healthy, and loving my body."
The 21-year-old uses her Instagram to inspire others and is also refreshingly open about her own weaknesses and imperfections. She candidly speaks about her fluctuating weight, admitting when she has "off weeks", is not training as hard or focusing on her nutrition.
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It appears Meghan loves to point out the deception behind "Instagram poses", apologising for sometimes only "showing my good poses and not my bad" and reminding her followers "DONT BE FOOLED by the poses of Instagram!"
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While the answer for anyone else wanting to lose weight and tone up
isn't to start dating a personal trainer like Meghan did, her Instagram account certainly is one of the honestly inspirational ones out there. Good on you, Meghan, and keep it up.
