we are back with our series taking off today and we're about to meet a mom and entrepreneur from west virginia whose weight loss journey started with a new year's resolution and with a little help from our start today community well guess what her transformation has been nothing short of remarkable i'm carrie newman from huntington west virginia in january of 2021 i physically wasn't feeling well and noticed that a simple walk took a lot of energy at the time i weighed 250 pounds so i made a new year's resolution to focus on my health and lose
the weight i started walking regularly drinking more water and counting calories in august of last year i discovered the start today facebook group following the exercises on the page helped kick my health journey into high gear with the support of the today show community and my family i kept at it and began to see results today 20 months later i've now lost over 100 pounds for me it's been challenging but so rewarding and i want to share my story to help others [Music] okay so here's carrie before and now here's carrie now carrick case [Applause]
thank you for being here come on man sit down thank you welcome welcome so so carrie over 100 pounds except for jaden so 100 pounds in less than 20 months in about 20 months so besides the obvious change what's the thing that you've noticed that's changed about you i am just physically and mentally both both things i feel so much better um the mental aspect of it i'm less stressed i can handle situations a little bit better and i just kind of you know overall definitely better in my mind which led to my physical well-being
and you know my knees don't hurt my back doesn't hurt um i sleep better it's like a catch 22 the better you feel the more you can do and you just keeps building and when we go hiking or walks i have no physical limitations i can just go and do whatever i want to do carrie i guarantee you that people who are watching us right now are just saying themselves how did she do it like what were those particulars i wanted to ask you about diet did you change up your diet uh much at all
um totally totally first i took it step by step first it was no soda then it was no fast food and by the time i got confident with that and felt good then i started calorie counting and learning to cook a little bit better and you did the work i didn't i really did i was reading your story and what happened to you happens to a lot of us where you plateau again when you start to give up so what did you do when you hit that plateau um actually i started watching well i watched
the today show every morning but um i had seen stephanie on here with her strength exercises yes and i kind of got into that really um so strength training did that help you kind of get back over the hump it didn't it's great to hear you talk and we all do so much about mental health and your mental well-being when it comes to you know your physical well-being they kind of go hand in hand so how did you get your mind right to you know be able to get out the door to be able to
take those steps to improve your health um i kind of had to get my mindset of not just weight loss but to get healthy amen um there's so much that goes along with with it it's a total lifestyle change and um i really started journaling and trying to figure out my my why why do i want to do this yeah and you know i didn't want to sit sit around in my my older years and not be able to do the things that i really enjoy doing amen what is what did a support group like
like our start today facebook group do for you oh it's really nice to connect with people that have the same goals and you know you get tips and you share your success stories and you know support means a lot my family my husband's went on all the hikes with me all the walks right on and if i don't have my 10 000 steps he's asking hey do you have your steps in let's go let's go for a walk that's great and um you know my kids too i mean they're pretty much adults now but they
always yeah they always kind of joined in whenever they were around and yeah that's great congratulations to you yeah thank you thank you it's inspiring really great it is and to learn more about carrie story you can head to today.com good job did it exhale all right coming up now i don't even know [Laughter] hey thanks for watching our youtube channel find your favorite recipes celebrity interviews uplifting stories shop our favorite deals and so much more with the today app download it now
