Brittney Custard was heading to the customer service desk in a department store when she started having back problems halfway through the short walk.
Her weight was close to 300 pounds at the time, a heavy burden for her 5-foot-1-inch frame.
Custard’s back hurt, and she was short of breath. She started snoring at night and felt invisible during the day.
“The heavier I got, I noticed the attention went away. It seemed like I was being ignored,” Custard, 38, who lives in Canton, Michigan, and goes by the nickname Lucky, tells TODAY.com.
“I started having back problems, and I was just like, ‘This is ridiculous. I can’t even fully parent like this.’ I had to make a change.”
The change that worked for her was the Atkins diet, a low-carb lifestyle that emphasizes high-protein foods, fat, cheese, lower-carb vegetables, nuts and seeds. It limits bread, starchy vegetables and fruit.
Weight gain
Custard says she was already aware of her weight as a child, noticing she was heavier than the other kids. But she was active, performing, tap dancing and doing some local modeling.
During a meeting with a modeling agency when she was 8, an agent told her mother, “She’s not getting taller. She’s starting to gain weight.” Custard says she’ll never forget that comment.
As an adult, her go-to food choice was carbs — mainly breads and pastas. A typical breakfast might be leftover pizza, and dinner often consisted of a salad piled with croutons and fried chicken, she says.
In 2018, after Custard had endured years of irregular menstrual cycles and weight gain, she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal imbalance that affects 10% of women of childbearing age, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
It made it difficult to expand her family and travel because…
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