The cruel text – on the phone of a guy she’d just met in a bar – cut Lettie Barnett to the quick.
‘Are you going to pump fatty tonight?’ it read.
The Toowoomba nurse’s weight had crept up to 98 kilos after she feasted on McDonald’s, two minute noodles, hot chips and drank excessive amounts of alcohol.
Although the 25-year-old knew she wasn’t skinny, until Lettie saw that fateful text her weight hadn’t been too much of a concern to her.
As it slowly dawned on Lettie the ‘fatty’ in the text was her – and ‘no one had any respect for her’ – she took immediate action and joined a gym the next day.
‘I didn’t let the bullies win, I used it to fuel my fire,’ she tells New Idea.
Once the decision was made, she took things slowly but surely.
‘When I started out at the gym I went from doing absolutely no exercise and eating junk food to being determined to spend even a small amount of time on the treadmill,’ Lettie told the Toowoomba Chronicle.
The 25-year-old tried myriad of fad diets until she finally found a meal delivery service called FivePointfour which sells Macronutrient-controlled prepared meals.
‘When I first got them, I thought: “Oh, these look like small meals,’” Lettie told the Daily Mail. ‘But now I know I was one of those people who would so overeat at mealtime.’
Five years on Lettie works out at her local gym six days a week weight training, doing yoga and boxing.
Her mental and physical transformation after losing a staggering 35 kilos is astounding.
‘I never could’ve imagined I would come this far but I have,’ she posted to Instagram. ‘So anyone feeling disheartened, please don’t. You’ve got this. Just one day at a time.’
Thinking back to that awful text message and recalling how devastated she was, Lettie says she wished it hadn’t taken that to motivate her.
‘It was awful, but at the same time it was obviously what I needed to hear,’ she told the Toowoomba Chronicle.
‘It is not okay to be horrible to someone but sometimes tough love is the motivation needed.’
And ultimately, it is Lettie who is having the last laugh.
‘I used to get excited about deep fried food and alcohol and now I get excited about exercising! The journey has been so full of ups and downs but I can honestly say I have never loved my reality more than today.’
