As Rafaela Arlotta grew older she struggled with weight gain which affected her self-esteem.
“It took me a long time to be overweight. I’ve had an accordion effect all my life. I think the first shock for me was to assume myself obese,” she told EU Atleta.
The 32-year-old said it took her two years to become pregnant and felt that her excess weight is what delayed pregnancy.
Now that she was going to be a mother, she wanted to lose that excess weight and adopt a healthy lifestyle so that she could be a better role model for her daughter.
“I did not want my daughter to go through obesity, I did not want her to grow up seeing me ingesting things that hurt her health and fighting with scales. That was a great motivator. To make a different story for my daughter.”
So after her daughter Mel was born, Rafaela started her weight loss journey. She had a intragastric balloon inserted but ended up gaining back all the weight she lost.
So, she started to eat healthily and exercise more.
“When Mel was born, I lost only her weight, 7lbs, and then I lost almost nothing. Since I work on my own, I only had 47 days of maternity leave, so it was just me and my daughter. I did not have a nanny and my husband only arrived at night,” Rafaela told Daily Mail.
“When she was three months old, I decided to challenge myself. At this point I got the nanny [to visit] twice a week. This gave me time to work and to take care of myself, while being able to do other things.”
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Those changes helped her to lose 70 lbs. Now she has more than 38,000 followers on Instagram who look to her for fitness inspiration. Rafaela, a businesswoman, now does weight training six times a week, run for 2 hours four days a week, and eats light and healthy.
And Rafaela can see that her lifestyle choices are having an effect on her daughter.
“Sometimes I’m training at home and she’s on the side imitating. She sees that I enjoy and enjoy exercising, get involved as well,” Rafaela says of her daughter. “He asked to buy the same shoes from Mom, Mom’s running clothes. It’s fun for her.”
You can learn more about Rafaela’s weight loss journey in by checking out her Instagram page here.
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