I lost 80 pounds my secret is about a hula hoop

Fitness

From Jane Hertz

July 3, 2023 | 2:21 pm

A British woman claimed she was able to lose more than 80 pounds with the help of weight-loss surgery and hula hooping.

Laura Johnson, who went from nearly 230 pounds to 150 in just one year, attributes a big chunk of her loss to a weighted hula hoop, which she uses for 15 minutes every day.

I was so busy being a mom and doing shift work, Johnson, a 42-year-old mom of four, told the South West News Service about her weight gain. She didn’t leave me time to focus on dieting and staying healthy.

He continued but it got to the point where I didn’t want to leave the house, I felt so big and I knew it wasn’t me.

Johnson, a police commissioner, explained that the weight became really hard to lose after giving birth to her fourth child in 2013, a change from her typical postpartum experiences.

I had my fourth child at 32 in 2013 and something was different, I couldn’t shift the extra weight no matter what I did, she said.

She also made the decision to quit smoking in 2011 and says it drove her sweet tooth crazy, tempted by cookies, cakes and other goodies.

In an effort to lose weight, Johnson said she’s tried every faddy diet on the market, including Weight Watchers, Slimming World, SlimFast shakes, calorie counting, and juicing.

She even tried going to the gym and even dabbled in water aerobics, but the weight didn’t seem to change.

However, it wasn’t until a recent girls trip that the 42-year-old finally got a wake-up call.

It was when I was invited to a girls’ weekend with all my friends, and I didn’t want to go, that I realized my weight was controlling my life, she told SWNS.

I’m usually the life and soul of a party and the fact that I just wanted to stay home and hide away, I knew something had to change drastically.

It was after that trip that Johnson began looking into weight loss surgery, as one of her friends had gotten it and seen some amazing results.

In March 2022, she went for a gastric sleeve surgery consultation at Doncaster Park Hill Private Hospital in England and returned three months later to have the procedure.

A gastric sleeve is a weight-loss procedure that will remove a large portion of a person’s stomach, leaving a narrow stomach tube, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Because of this, patients often report feeling fuller more quickly than usual.

Gastric sleeve surgery removed 80 percent of my stomach, so I feel full very quickly, she said.

However, it hasn’t always been an easy journey.

The surgery was tough, I was quite sick afterwards, but overall it was great, he said.

Two months after the surgery, Johnson was able to lose 28 pounds, but he continued to lose even more weight by exercising.

I’m active now and love hula hooping, she told SWNS.

I grabbed one weighted one online from Amazon and am obsessed.

In addition to her daily hula hoop, Johnson likes to go for long walks and also run, using an app on her phone, Couch to 5K, to help.

After the surgery and making major lifestyle changes, the mom-of-four said she felt lighter in her head and more liberated.

She no longer eats too much and yet she doesn’t binge, that won’t stop her from getting a surprise every now and then.

Life is so much more fun now, I try things with the kids that I wouldn’t have done before, Johnson said.

I took my life back and dance on the tables again like I used to.