How My Family Lost 300 Pounds in 14 Month on Virta

Because diabetes ran in my family, my parents were pretty strict about food growing up. They taught me to eat healthy, to avoid junk food, and watch the desserts. All the lessons they taught me were good ones, and I never had any problems maintaining my weight--but when I turned 18, I did what most kids do. I rebelled. And in my case, my rebellion took me right to the bottom of a bucket of ice cream.

Fast forward to February 2024, and all the bad food habits my parents had tried to keep me away from had caught up with me. At 5-foot-5 and 37 years of age, I was 310 pounds. Even worse, I had just learned from my doctor that I had prediabetes: the family curse had caught up to me too.

My Wakeup Call To Join Virta

Although I’d been gaining weight consistently for almost twenty years, my prediabetes diagnosis was my wakeup call. At the end of his life, my grandfather struggled with some of the worst complications of diabetes; I worried that if I didn’t do something about my weight now, my kids might watch me go the same way.

Speaking of my family, I also worried about the example I was setting for them. Although my husband was big himself and assured me he still found me attractive, I was ashamed of how I looked. Worse, as a mom, I was worried about the example I was setting for my 12-year-old son, who was struggling with weight himself.

As a mom, I was worried about the example I was setting for my 12-year-old son, who was struggling with weight himself.

Looking for help, I discovered Virta Health, which was covered by my husband’s employer, U-Haul. By working with me to follow a nutritionally balanced low-carb diet with 1:1 coaching, Virta promised that I could lose wiehgt and potentially reverse my prediabetes diagnosis. As I prepared for my first meeting with my Virta health coach, excitement surged through me. She was enthusiastic and immediately focused on the potential challenges I'd face. Armed with her support and my Virta-approved food list, I got to work.

Getting My Family On Board

The first thing I did was talk to my husband. Although he was skeptical at first of the changes I wanted to make, joking that he’d have to go to McDonald’s for dinner, I made it clear to him that while I didn’t expect him to make the same dietary choices I made, his support would help me succeed. He agreed to help, and the next thing I knew, we were filling laundry baskets with all the unhealthy food we had in the kitchen that we were going to get rid of: including sugary sodas, salty chips, indulgent ice cream, frozen pizzas loaded with preservatives, and sweet BBQ sauce that we had often relied on for quick meals. (Don’t worry: we didn’t throw all this food away. We gave it all to the neighbors so we wouldn’t be tempted!) 

Totally changing my eating habits was hard at first, but pretty soon, the pounds started melting off.

When my kids saw the changes I was making, they exhibited all the stages of grief: anger, denial, bargaining, you name it.  My daughter begged me to remember that embracing a healthier lifestyle didn’t mean everyone needed to give up their favorite treats, while my son–who loved fizzy drinks–seethed in anger and disappointment that I’d gotten rid of all the soda. However, to my surprise, he was the first one to come around, telling me just the next day how much he loved the flavored seltzers I’d picked up instead.

Totally changing my eating habits was hard at first, but pretty soon, the pounds started melting off. Even better, my family’s health started improving as well. Just two weeks into my weight loss journey, my husband decided to join the Virta Health program. And while my daughter has always been a skinny minnie, my son soon began slimming down and toning up, without even being on the Virta program. My influence alone was enough to change his health patterns.

The Unexpected Challenges of Being Healthy

There were some unexpected challenges. One of the biggest was about how I expressed myself. For years, I had become known as the cake mom. Every celebration, every birthday, every holiday, I prided myself on baking and decorating a cornucopia of sweets. But on Virta, I couldn’t eat most of these desserts, and even preparing them became a temptation. I still made cakes for others when I could, and I found some great low-carb, low-sugar dessert recipes through Virta that my family loved, but baking ceased to be my primary way of self-expression. Instead, I took up crochet, which I found I loved.

Another challenge was when I entered perimenopause. Although I had resisted giving into my sugary cravings so far, the throes of hormone fluctuations kept me fantasizing about indulging in a bucket of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream while binge-watching Outlander. However, instead of giving into my cravings, I connected with my coach, and she helped me regroup and recommit to my ongoing weight loss journey instead of reaching for the ice cream scoop. I’d been through other hormone and health changes before in my life: I wasn’t going to let perimenopause break my stride.

300+ Pounds in 14 Months

Today, about 14 months after joining Virta, I’ve lost 133 pounds, reducing my BMI from 51.6 to 29.5, while my husband has shed 110 pounds. Even more amazingly, our son has lost 65 pounds without actively dieting, just because we started making healthier choices as a family. He looks great, he’s much more active than before, and his confidence has just gone through the roof. It just goes to show that the choices we make for ourselves can have strong knock-on effects on the people we love most.