Heartbreaking reason behind woman's transformation

A Sydney woman who dropped half her weight has revealed the tragic catalyst behind her impressive weight loss.

Rebecca Lee, from Sydney, was so unhappy with her size 22 waistline that she refused to go outdoors.

She’d hidden herself away after surviving a physically and emotionally violent relationship, writing in a blog post that she was scared he “would come after me or bring physical harm to my family”.

But after 12 months of using junk food and pizza to help deal with her anxiety and depression, Rebecca received some heartbreaking news.

She’d ballooned to 116 kilos and her doctor warned that it could prevent her from ever having biological children.

It was the kick Rebecca needed to start a dramatic transformation, and she’s since dropped down to a size 12.

"I was overweight and frumpy before I started my weight loss journey,” Rebecca says.

"I was housebound and eating unhealthy snacks 24/7. One of my biggest cravings was pizza and I'd eat a large one to myself every day.”

Rebecca started going to the gym three times a week, using weights and the treadmill – but the first time she went she was laughed at and mocked by a group of schoolboys.

"I hated being housebound but I didn't have the confidence to go outside,” she says.

"I finally got the courage to go to the gym and I was being laughed at by a group of boys that were standing behind me.

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"They were mocking my weight so I could hear, it just ripped through any confidence that I had. I don't know how people could be so cruel to someone they don't even know."

It didn’t help that much of Rebecca’s confidence had been eroded by her former partner.

“That relationship had stripped me of all my self-confidence and worth, so much so, I truly believed if someone was looking at me it was to laugh,” she writes in her blog.

After getting down to 80kgs, Rebecca was heartbroken to find that her weight had left a permanent mark on her body.

“I had stretch marks and I was devastated to find that after all of those hours in the gym, my breasts now looked like deflated balloons,” she says.

Rebecca decided to go through a full breast reconstruction to get her body to where she wanted it to be, but unfortunately, that wasn’t enough.

“The only way I was able to interact with other people outside of my little group was by drinking alcohol,” she says.

“As time went on, I discovered nightclubs. Week in and out, I drank away my wages. I partied hard, creating many memories with temporary people who by morning, their names I would forget.”

It was a self-destructive cycle that only ended in her turning around and discovering she had “accumulated a large debt, a group of fake friends, and due to my actions, I had pushed away anyone who had legitimately cared for me.”

“I thought back to twenty year old me: the girl that was uncontrollably sobbing in her car praying to God to take the pain away,” she writes.

“Twenty-year-old me would have been devastated to know that seven years down the track, the same type of guy that was laughing at her at the gym that day, she was now hanging out with every weekend.”

Now 30, Rebecca has realised she needed to stop waiting for someone to save her and make mental and emotional changes herself.

- With additional reporting by Caters News

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