Lara Jade used to stand behind people in photos so nobody could see how big she was.
She’s now lost 10 stone. No injections.
The 22-year-old from Queensland weighed 138kg at her heaviest.
By that point she’d already tried losing the weight once, lost 50kg, and put it all back on plus more.
The genetics excuse stopped working
She blamed her mum’s side of the family. Bigger build, that sort of thing. The story held until it didn’t.
“I do not recognise the old me,” she told Creatorzine.
“I am not the sad, miserable and unhealthy girl I once was.”
The bullying at school was constant. She dropped out.
She couldn’t join in at lunchtime because her body physically wouldn’t let her, and she avoided anything that made her conspicuous, which at that weight was most things.
A bedroom HIIT routine at 14
Her first attempt started young. At 14 she was doing HIIT and dance workouts in her bedroom.
A year later she joined a gym. By the end of 11 months on daily training and keto, she’d dropped 50kg from a starting weight of 124kg.
Then her back went.
A ruptured disc ended the routine. Keto on its own was never going to be sustainable, and it wasn’t.
The weight came back, then more. Between 17 and 20 she hit 138kg, her heaviest ever.
“It was all downhill from there,” she said.
The second attempt was slower
In 2024 she cut takeaways and started daily medication for her back.
Once she could move more freely, she could move more.
She got a customer service job that kept her on her feet for whole shifts.
“The flare ups weren’t constant anymore and the healing time became a lot less,” she said.
“I was able to start working again.”
January 2025: back in the gym, three sessions a week, building carefully so she didn’t blow the disc again.
By late 2025 she was up to five. Whole foods. Outdoor exercise that didn’t really feel like exercise.
She now sits between 73kg and 76kg.
“I prefer to be front and centre of photos now,” she said. “I put my hand up for a lot more.”
She lifts heavier every couple of months. Goes hiking.
Plays with her nieces and nephews without falling back on “I’m too sore or tired today sorry”. Looks forward to the gym.
What she’d tell someone at 22 stone
She’s wary of the scales. Photos and measurements do a better job, she reckons.
“Muscle weighs more than fat, so please take photos, measurements and don’t solely rely on the scale.
The way clothes fit, the way you feel and the things you’ll be able to do, will outweigh the scale every single time.”
She also wants the goal to be clear. “Please remember all bodies are beautiful, no matter what shape and size. Being healthy comes in many forms.”
The honest version of her advice involves swearing. “You’ll cry, you’ll sweat, swear and want to give up more times than you can count but it is so important you keep pushing forward. Your health is important. Your quality of life is important.”
Why this matters for transformation creators
Weight-loss content on TikTok and Instagram is mostly GLP-1 timelines now.
Monthly dose updates. Before-and-afters scored to upbeat audio.
Lara’s story sits in a smaller category that doesn’t need a disclaimer about what she was on, and that category is where audiences keep drifting once they’ve worked out the difference.
Transformation creators have spent the last year quietly splitting into two lanes: the ones who took something, and the ones who didn’t.
The injury detours, the regressions, the eleven months of grind that got undone by one bad disc, are the bits that read as real.
They’re also harder to fake, which is part of the appeal.
Whether Lara turns her timeline into a content channel of its own remains to be seen.
Plenty of women in her position have. The audience for it has never been bigger.
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