An obese widow who took selfies every day for 365 days to document her weight loss journey has shed an incredible 126 pounds.
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Justine McCabe, 31, has had a difficult few years. When her mother died in 2013 from chemotherapy complications, McCabe turned to food for comfort.
At the time, the 5’10 hairstylist weighed 285 pounds. Then, in February 2015, tragedy struck one more. Her husband of six months, John Paul, took his own life after a long struggle with depression.
“This just destroyed me,” said the hairstylist, who lives Burbank, California. “I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
After her husband’s death, her binge eating got worse. At her heaviest, she weighed 313 pounds.
“I would say I consumed anywhere between 5,000 to 10,000 calories on a daily basis,” McCabe tells Us Weekly. “I was completely broken and grieving. I had no desire to live life.”
It all changed one day when the size-24 mother of two took a photo of herself.
“I didn’t recognize myself in it,” she says. “I looked lost, broken and full of darkness. So every day from there on out, I took a selfie with the hope that I would start to see myself again and reclaim my light.”
She completely changed her lifestyle, swapping her old diet of pizza, ice cream and fries for egg whites, chicken and fish.
A little more than a year later, she’s lost 126 pounds, documenting her weight loss journey through daily selfies and posting them on Instagram.
“Taking pictures every day and comparing them to other ones I had taken gave me the desire to keep pushing forward and fight to become the person I knew I was deep down,” she says.
Now, McCabe calls the gym her “best form of therapy” and exercises six days a week, doing spinning, hiking and weight lifting.
“I have found my self love and confidence,” McCabe says. “I feel unstoppable.”
According to US Weekly:
Old Diet:
Breakfast 4 chorizo breakfast tacos
Snack 3 cookies, a handful of pretzels, candy
Lunch Double cheeseburger and french fries
Dinner 5 slices of pizza, breadsticks and chicken wings
Dessert Large bowl of ice cream and a bag of M&Ms
New Diet:
Meal 1 Egg whites and avocado
Meal 2 Chicken, broccoli and brown rice
Meal 3 Protein shake with berries
Meal 4 Fish and spinach