Model Abigail Ratchford—she does a ton of work on social media, and has been featured on various men’s sites, including Maxim and Sports Illustrated—is used to being asked how she went from zero Instagram followers to a whooping 8.2 million in only two years. She also fields a ton of asks for skin care and makeup tips, which is why she recently started producing a series of beauty vlogs and tutorials, with an in-the-works skin care launch coming in February.
Nowadays though, she’s taking on a different question: How exactly did she lose 20 pounds so quickly?
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Like a lot of people, Ratchford says it was a “lifestyle change.” Unlike a lot of people, she has a job where she had to “keep her curves,” so the formula for losing weight had to be fine-tuned.
“I can’t diet. That just doesn’t work for me,” the 25-year-old says. “I started to be healthier by first cutting out soda. Then, I stopped eating after 7 p.m. Finally, I started really watching my portions so I was eating fewer calories every day. And water—lots and lots of water.”
While she admits it’s not “rocket science,” she does credit the MyFitnessPal app for pulling all the steps together and keeping her on-track. “I’m the type of person who likes to eat what I want. The app can help anyone do that—you can still eat great food, you just eat less of it.”
Although she credits diet as being the big factor behind dropping pounds, fitness was also in the mix.
“Group workout classes are so big right now, but I always get nervous around other people in settings like that. I have to go at my own pace without a bunch of distractions so, for me, Pilates with a one-on-one instructor works best. It’s not cheap, but then you also aren’t tempted to skip.”
