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Brittany Schregardus, 42, was bullied in middle school by kids who though she was overweight, and as a high school athlete, she developed an eating disorder. “In high school, I was thin, but not in a healthy way,” she tells TODAY. Her even more when she became pregnant with her daughter during her first year of college.
She lost weight after she gave birth, then gained again six and a half years later when she had her second child, a son. In 2011, when she was in her early 30s, she and her husband separated, then divorced. Around that time, she reconnected with a man who she knew as her brother’s best friend in childhood.
He became her second husband. In 2013, Schregardus got pregnant again. “After my second son was born, I got an implant in my arm for birth control.
Within two to three months, I put on about 50 pounds. I didn’t realize it was a side effect. I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror,” she says.
Removing the implant would have been problematic, so she left it in and waited for the hormonal effects to drop off. She had left her job as a dental assistant to stay home with her son, and, busy with him and her two older daughters, she didn’t think too much about her weight. Covid hit and she didn’t go out much.
“I became a recluse while I was at home with my son,” she says. She’s sure she gained even more weight, but she didn’t step on a scale. Due to her weight, she sometimes had trouble breathing.
“I have and have had breathing issues because of it ever since I put on that much weight,” she says. Her kids noticed that she was breathing hard sometimes, and they worried she wouldn’t be around for them. When Covid restrictions lifted and Schregardus’ kids got older, she went back to work.
Being on the move all day, she lost about 35 pounds. “I decided it was time to start working on myself again. Being in healthcare, you want to take care of yourself.
I was in my 40s, and I really wanted to start concentrating on being more healthy,” she said. In the past six months, she’s lost 40 more pounds. Here’s how she did it.
For a no-drinking health challenge at work in September 2024, she . She realized that she was drinking a lot more extra calories than she was eating, and cut back to just one cup of a day, with a measured amount of creamer. “Looking at a lot of people’s , a lot of people have fast-food habits or bad eating habits.
That wasn’t really an issue for me. It was drinking my calories, especially with my coffee, and not eating what I should be eating. Because of my struggles in the past, I’ve never really felt like I could take in a lot of calories if I wasn’t consuming a lot of food,” she says.
In October 2024 she joined the “Walktober” challenge at work and started . On most workdays she gets those steps easily — by adding in walks to her breaks, she often hits 15,000 steps. On her days off, she started taking walks in her neighborhood, getting in at least 10,000 steps and climbing and descending the hills near her home outside of Portland, Ore.
When the weather is bad, she . “It used to take me about an hour and a half to get in 10,000 steps walking in place. It takes about an hour now.
You don’t realize how quickly you build up your stamina,” she says. Schregardus found an that calculates what you should eat based on your height, weight, age and weight-loss goals. For eight weeks, she ate 1,200 calories a day and quickly lost about 25 pounds.
“It was actually hard for me to take in that amount of calories in food because I was not used to eating that much. You don’t realize how much you have to consume to get the calories that you should be having in a clean way,” she says. She uses to track her calories: “I look up every single thing that I eat.
” She’s careful to track everything, including things she might have overlooked, like the oil she uses for cooking. She weighs all of her food, so she knows her amounts are accurate. “A cup that’s packed is a lot different than one that’s not,” she says.
She makes a lot of 200-calorie-or-less recipes, like: She stops eating two hours before bedtime on workdays, when she gets home late, and four hours before bedtime on her days off. Over the holidays, she wasn’t so strict about her . “I gave myself some flexibility and wiggle room,” she says.
For Thanksgiving she focused on preparing and enjoying the meal. Between then and Christmas, she planned for splurge days when she wouldn’t track her calories and she might have a glass of wine or a dessert. “I didn’t go all out, but I let myself indulge here and there,” she says.
Schregardus didn’t realize how much she had lost over the years, as she put on weight. “I think that that has a huge impact on your health,” she says. She and her family together on Friday nights so they’re focusing on flexibility at least weekly.
Last October, she joined the Facebook group. “Seeing so many stories, I wanted to be a part of it,” she says. “I like finding other people’s tips now that I’m working on my health.
It’s good to get different aspects from multiple people because there’s not one person who knows it all. We all have good tips we can give each other,” she says. Schregardus now weighs 175 pounds and she’s keeping her calorie count under 1,800 a day.
She’s still losing weight and doesn’t have a hard number in mind that she wants to reach — it’s being healthy that matters. Stephanie Thurrott is a writer who covers mental health, personal growth, wellness, family, food and personal finance, and dabbles in just about any other topic that grabs her attention. When she's not writing, look for her out walking her dog or riding her bike in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.
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