From Flab to Fab: These Women Lost 422 Pounds
Reported July 19, 2006

If you need to lose weight but are lacking the inspiration to do it, hearing the stories of Chantel Hobbs and Angela Williams may be just what you need. These two women, who are featured in this week's People magazine in a story about people who have lost half their body weight, lost a combined total of 422 pounds without surgery, pills or gimmicks.

"These were women who maybe could have thought about gastric bypass surgery, who could have thought 'I've always been this way, there's nothing I can do about it,' " said People magazine senior editor Galina Espinosa. "Instead we have all these great examples of people who said,' no, this is actually something I can control and take charge of my life,' and they did."

Hobbs now weighs 154 pounds and wears a size eight. She lost 172 pounds off her 326-pound, size-24 frame. Now Hobbs, a 34-year-old mother of four in Coral Springs, Fla., works as a fitness instructor teaching spinning classes and has competed in five marathons.

"For me, it was more about changing the brain," Hobbs said. "It wasn't about food, it wasn't about doing a fad diet. It was something I knew was going to take a lot of work and commitment and I treated it like a job. I focused every ounce of energy I had on making this happen. I wanted to change my life."

Her first step to losing weight, she said, was making — and keeping — a commitment to go to the gym for 30 days. She kept making and achieving small goals for herself, and it led to major weight loss.

Hobbs has kept her weight off for three years and says that sliding back "is not an option." Williams, on the other hand, is celebrating more recent weight loss. She has lost 250 pounds from her top weight of 430 pounds, going from a size 34 to a size 12. She has maintained a weight of 180 pounds for the past four months.

The 27-year-old resident staff specialist who works with the mentally disabled in Alexandria, La., said she had been heavy her entire life. Two years ago, she was suffering from sleep apnea and high blood pressure, but it was the death of her aunt that motivated her to lose weight.

"She wasn't overweight, she had sickle cell diabetes," Williams said. "As obese as I was, I was headed toward that. And I was afraid of having diabetes."

Williams says she decided to join L.A. Weight Loss, which she credits for helping her lose weight, because she had no idea how to diet.

Williams brought a pair of her old pants on "Good Morning America" to show how big the waist was, but Hobbs says she doesn't like to keep any of her old clothes around. Hobbs said when she sees old pictures of herself, she wishes she hadn't waited so long to drop the pounds.

"Get started," Hobbs said she wants to say to the woman in those photos. "What are you waiting for? Life is so short. You don't need Jan. 1, you don't need a Monday, you don't need any of that stuff. You got to seize the moment and just make it happen."

On the other hand, Williams would give her old self more practical advice.

"It didn't have to be that way," she said. "Go for a walk. Don't eat such big portions."

I was big. And I changed. I made my mind up. You don't have to be uncomfortable. It can be done," she added.

ABC News' Liz Borod Wright contributed to this report.