Hi, I'm Shelli.
When I was 6 years old, I had a moment I will never forget.
Someone I loved dearly called me chubby.
And that moment began my decades-long struggle with my body.
MORE UNFORGETTABLE MEMORIES:
At 10 years old, a boy I liked called me fat and I started dieting.
At 13 years old, I became bulimic.
At 16 years old, I had two full-blown eating disorders (compulsive overeating and bulimia). I weighed over 200 pounds for the first time.
At 30 years old, the number on the scale hit over three hundred pounds (304 to be exact) for the first time.
At 39 years old...
I finally realized, diets were never going to work for me.
How do I lose weight without dieting? What's the alternative?
These were the questions that were swirling inside my head and I didn't have an answer at the time. All I knew is that I never felt comfortable in my body.
And that I never felt like my authentic self.
I felt like I was hiding myself in a body that didn't feel like me. I also felt like I was moving through the world in a way I just didn't want to be.
Worst of all, I felt like my life was passing me by, and I was simply an observer, not really an active participant at all.
Thing is, I knew pretty much everything about nutrition from over two decades of dieting. I was an expert at nutrient counts. I could tell anyone exactly how many calories any food had if they asked me.
I spent hours at the grocery store reading labels. I weighed and measured my meals down to the ounce. I denied myself foods I liked. I restricted entire food groups (anything with sugar and white flour, for starters). I starved to the point that I only ate rice cakes and lettuce for nearly a month. I exercised to exhaustion. I tried every fad and gimmick that came along.
I did all the things, I told myself, that you're supposed to do to reach a healthy weight.
What I didn't know and could never seem to do was maintain that weight loss.
Can you relate? Have you ever felt like you know everything there is to know about weight loss and still haven't been able to successfully keep the weight off? Most people do. Especially those of us who have been dieting for a long time.
We listen to other people tell us what's best for us instead of listening to ourselves.
I'm here to tell you that there is hope.
You can trust yourself and your body.
You can lose weight and keep it off.
You can live in a body that feels comfortable to you.
I help you bridge the gap between your mind and body.
I'm Shelli Johnson, Weight Loss Pro, and I've been featured four times in PEOPLE magazine.
Ultimately, what I do is help you listen to your own body so you can heal your relationship with food and create a body that feels comfortable to you, all without dieting.
Along the way, I help you shift your mindset and what you believe about food and its role in your life.
I help you understand why your weight-loss efforts haven't worked in the past so you can discover what will work for you moving forward.
Most of all, I teach you how to not only lose weight by eating what you want, but also how to maintain that loss long-term.
My expertise comes from experiencing morbid obesity and the eventual freedom from it firsthand. I've lost 174 pounds simply by listening to my body - no bariatric surgery, starvation, diet pills/supplements, excessive exercise, or disordered eating. I've maintained that loss for over a decade.
I have a big gift for helping you trust yourself and your body. I help you leverage your own wisdom so you can transform your body and, frankly, your life into the "you" that you envision yourself to be.
Helping students, clients, and readers transform their bodies has been incredible, but what's been even better is watching them shine. They start reaching for things they want for themselves. They start being seen instead of hiding in the shadows and keeping themselves small. They start moving through the world confidently as their authentic selves. Beyond stepping into a smaller clothing size or a smaller number on the scale, they are stepping into their full potential.
Helping overweight people go from powerless to powerful - so you can:
Heal your relationship with yourself and with food. Create a body that feels comfortable to you. Move through the world the way you want to.
I no longer live trapped in a body that doesn't feel like me. I am finally comfortable in my own skin. I have no fear of or obsession with food. I'm not afraid the weight will come back and I won't know what to do about it. I don't live in confusion, desperation, frustration, panic, humiliation, and shame.
Food and weight is no longer the focus of my life. I found freedom.
Your life can be that way too. Oh yes, it can.
Professional Bio
Shelli Johnson, Weight Loss Pro, is a health coach, author, and online educator who teaches sustainable, healthy weight loss and helps overweight people overcome the diet-go-round®. With over a decade of experience, Shelli created her program, Start Where You Are Weight Loss®, to help people use the same method so they can eat what they want, lose weight, and keep it off long-term.
Having once weighed 304 pounds, Shelli lost 174 pounds naturally and has maintained that loss for over a decade. By addressing the fact that long-term weight loss is not about food, but instead about what a person thinks about food and its role in their life, Shelli bridges the gap between mind and body, allowing her clients, readers, and students to listen to their own bodies and heal their relationship with food.
An internationally-recognized expert in the fields of obesity and weight management, Shelli has been featured in PEOPLE Half-Their-Size issue (on 3 covers), PEOPLE TV, FOX TV (Good Day Charlotte), National Public Radio, and The Charlotte Observer, among others. Her work has been published in The Plain Dealer, Thrive Global, Authority Magazine, Writer's Digest, and more. Her books, Start Where You Are Weight Loss® and Start Where You Are Weight Loss® Playbook, were both a #1 Amazon Bestseller. Shelli has used her experience to teach thousands of people how to create a body that feels comfortable to them.
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