An everyday Canadian couple captured the attention of people around the globe when they took control of their chaotic family life and together lost 220 pounds of unhealthy weight. The duo documented their weight loss journey as inspiration for others.
Meet the weight loss sensation
Jasmine Parent, 30, and her fiancé Jeremy Crawley, 27, knew they had to make a lifestyle change to give their children a better example.
Prior to last year, Jasmine weighed 295 pounds while Jeremy tipped the scale at 333 pounds.
Feeding our grief
Jasmine says she lost control of her weight after her father died in 2013.
“I started gaining weight and emotionally eating,” Jasmine said.
But her grief for her father turned into years of unhealthy lifestyle habits that ended up affecting her children.
“I wanted to be emotionally present and to interact with my girls and to have the energy for them,” she recalls. “But my anxiety was almost crippling some days that I couldn’t be the mother I wanted to be.”
Jasmine’s friends and family worried over her health, too.
“She was getting larger all the time,” her mother, Joan, admitted. “I worried about stress on her joints and heart problems. I didn’t like the way she seemed to feel about herself and her overall presence wasn’t positive. As a mother, that concerned me a lot.”
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The wake-up call
And Jasmine worried, as well. Seeing a photo of herself with friends, she said she couldn’t believe it.
“When I saw it my jaw dropped,” she recalls. “I couldn’t believe that was me standing next to my friends and I was so embarrassed.”
“I thought, “I’m not even thirty years old yet and I’m physically not able to walk up my stairs without having severe pain in my knees”.”
Decision to get healthy
Jeremy knew they couldn’t keep up with their unhealthy lifestyle, either. And despite both being heavy when they met through Instagram, neither could believe the sizes they’d allowed themselves to get to.
‘The sugar and sodium and all that stuff – I really couldn’t fight it,” Jeremy says.
“I couldn’t believe how big I had gotten,” he continued. “Finally, we found that drive to do something about it.”
Start with small weight loss goals
Initially, Jasmine and Jeremy agreed on a 21-day program just to see how it went.
“In the beginning, I never thought that we would lose this much weight,” Jasmine marveled.
And looking back, Jasmine can’t believe how unhealthy their relationship with food was.
“Our eating habits were horrendous,” she recalls. “We didn’t prepare any of our meals, barely, at home. We spent a lot of money on junk food and take-out.”
At first, Jasmine and Jeremy chose to focus on fixing their meal choices first.
“It was possible for us to lose so much weight just by completely switching the way that we were eating.”
And soon they found that, thanks to their newfound weigh loss, they had the energy to move their bodies more and exercise.
A new lease on life
Working together for a common goal, Jeremy and Jasmine encouraged each other to keep going. Staying focused on healthy meals and exercise is certainly easier when your partner is all in with you.
However, Jasmine says the journey wasn’t always easy.
“There were days when I felt like I was definitely going to quit,” she said. “There were days when I left like it wasn’t worth it, that I wasn’t worth it.”
“But I kept pushing,” she continued. “I wanted to set a great example for my daughters.”
And Jeremy says the same goes for him.
“My attitude towards everything did a complete 360,” he says. “Just a better father, partner and just happier with myself.”
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Making family the priority
Jasmine documented her weight loss journey on social media to add an extra layer of encouragement and accountability. And she says that the lifestyle changes she and Jeremy made for their family were more than food and exercise.
“It is just about prioritizing. Are we going to spend 20 minutes watching Netflix this evening or are we going to spend 30 minutes in our living room doing a quick work-out?”
And after two pregnancies and over 100-pound weight loss, Jasmine took the big, painful step of getting the subsequent excess skin removed.
“I feel like I worked really, really hard to get to this body and then I put pants on and have this kind of budge where the skin is.”
It really goes to show that while changing your life is a tough and often thankless task, having the support of loved ones is key.