It’s not how fast, but how well you change.
Lucy Bergin, a 20-year-old TikTok user documented herself losing 30 pounds over a period of six months and shared the results in a time-lapse video that’s caught the eye of millions of viewers in less than two months.
Who is Lucy Bergin and what’s her weight loss story? Here’s everything to know about it.
Who is Lucy Bergin?
Lucy’s TikTok video is the perfect representation of the changes time can bring, and how they can be sped up with a proper diet and exercise regimen. But to truly appreciate her story, one has to know where she comes from.
At the age of 11, Lucy was diagnosed with scoliosis and had to wear a brace for 22 hours a day for a whole year. Naturally, she was advised not to exercise. This meant that by her late teens, she was already weighing well above 200 pounds. Given her short stature (at 4ft, 11in), this put her Body Mass Index in the obese category.
She was homeschooled and didn’t play much sport, even though she has a sibling, and later developed an unhealthy eating habit that didn’t help her either.
“I struggled with a few things and life hit me hard.”
Given her struggles then, her transformation is all the more striking, especially when seen in a time-lapse video that captures 6 months of her journey in 30 seconds.
Lucy Bergin’s weight loss story Explored
Lucy’s video diary started in November last year and ended six months later in April this year. Every day, for six months, she took a picture of herself wearing the same bikini next to a calendar, crossing out one day after another to mark the passage of time.
Lucy went from 168 to 140 pounds during this time, effectively bringing herself out of the severely unhealthy obese category.
We’ve all seen before-and-after pictures of drastic bodily transformation before, but a time-lapse of someone making slow and real change, that too against odds such as hers, is inspiring, to say the least.
Unlike many who go through surgeries to deal with obesity, Lucy started on the path to a better life with a good combination of healthy eating and supervised exercise.
She eventually became a certified personal trainer, which meant she could take on the challenge without hurting herself. But what she managed is no easy feat to achieve still.
This wasn’t her first try at losing weight either. Lucy had been overweight as a child and then again had weight problems in college. Her inspiration came from seeing others people on TikTok who had gone through similar transformations before.
Watch Lucy Bergin’s time-lapse reel
Being a certified trainer and the co-owner of Gritttfit – a fitness company – Lucy shared her 30-second video on Gritttfit’s TikTok page that you can see below.
@gritttfit thank you @hunter_hobbs for this idea 🙂 #weightloss #transformation #fyp #loseweight #foryou #workout
You can also find Lucy’s video on Gritttfit’s Instagram page.
Ever since the upload, her efforts have been appreciated and applauded to no end. At over 11 million views and 1.7 million likes, Lucy’s time-lapse reel has struck quite the chord with a lot of people. Her story is all over media outlets and is shared and viewed virally, and deservedly so.
What’s her secret diet?
Inspired by her own efforts now, many have started asking about her diet and exercise regimen which, apart from her sheer will and an intimate understanding of the body as a personal trainer, have been instrumental in her transformation.
Besides lifting weights and doing other aerobic exercises every day, Lucy consumed the same meal every day and kept the daily calorie count at about 1600.
“It really came down to my diet because I couldn’t beat the (bad) diet in the gym.”
She insists that there is no one plan to fit everyone and one is better off doing what one’s body needs. She herself had a protein and carbohydrate-focused diet, which is not what one would normally presume someone on weight loss to have. Her own friend lost the same amount of weight but with a keto diet.
Starving, or eating less than 1200 calories a day is strictly forbidden. The main point here is to keep the calorie count under check and to burn more than you consume which is what experts agree is the right way of losing body fat.
Lucy says her exercise routine has also become hardcore over time, due in no small part to her friend who trained with her and kept her accountable when she lost track. Now, as the results also show, she’s taken on working out as a daily essential that she says should not be forgone, like brushing your teeth or taking a shower.
Though social media is denigrated as setting unrealistic beauty standards, stories like Lucy’s show what real determination to change looks like. Many have found heart and motivation in Lucy’s weight loss journey and see it as a model to learn from. Being the co-owner of her fitness company, she has also kept up her efforts at being vocal about weight loss and body image and continues to bring positive change to the community, which is another reason her fame is well warranted.
