People PEOPLE Half Their Size 2022

20 years of hts! The idea was simple: hear from regular people—not celebrities with personal trainers and private chefs—how they’d lost a transformative amount of weight through lifestyle changes. In 2002 People reporters reached out to gyms, diet companies and a national registry that studied long-term weight loss to find the first (brave) group of seven people to show off their before and after photos. The idea was a hit—a new Half Their Size class has appeared in the magazine’s pages every year since. “Eventually people started contacting us,” says Elizabeth Sporkin, the former executive editor who long oversaw those issues. “Over time the emphasis shifted from looking better to feeling better,” she notes. In that spirit, this 20th edition of HTS features the latest inspirational stories, plus practical tips from…

Lexlee Hudson Age: 25 Height: 5'9" Lives in: San Antonio Job: Health coach I WAS VERY ATHLETIC GROWING UP, AND during my junior year of high school I tore my ACL, MCL and meniscus playing basketball. I stopped being active, and in college I gained around 180 lbs. in one year. My back hurt all the time, I had PCOS, and I was close to becoming diabetic. I love to ride horses—I’ve done it my entire life—and I couldn’t anymore. Meanwhile, my grandma had lost 75 lbs. with Optavia, and my mom dropped 80 lbs.—and in January 2018 I gave in and said, “Okay, I’m ready, let’s do it.” I’d been a binge eater and had to learn proper nutrition. Now I swap regular pizza for ones with cauliflower crust or have my Taco…

Karen Brown AS FIT TODAY AS WHEN SHE MADE HER 2002 COVER DEBUT, ONE OF PEOPLE’S ORIGINAL HTS STARS LOOKS BACK FONDLY ON HER EXPERIENCE AS A CHECKOUT-LINE CELEBRITY WHEN KAREN BROWN POSED FOR People’s inaugural Half Their Size cover in 2002, neither she nor the magazine knew quite what to expect. Six years earlier the mother of four had set out to lose weight after being jeered by a group of teens in a McDonald’s. Brown, then 30, tuned out the taunts but couldn’t shake the fear that obesity (she was nearly 200 lbs. at 5'3") and a family history of diabetes and heart disease represented a real risk to her health. “I was having heart palpitations, was borderline diabetic and anemic,” she said. “It hit me that I wanted to…

Shawna Tindal TAKING THE SLOW AND STEADY ‘TORTOISE’ APPROACH WORKED FOR THIS PHOTOGRAPHER THROUGH NEARLY 10 YEARS—AND 4 KIDS SHAWNA TINDAL’S WEIGHT PROBLEM began early. “I grew up in a household that didn’t model good relationships with food,” Tindal, a Tucson-based photographer, said in 2020. “I picked up on that and took it to the extreme.” She told of sneaking food when people weren’t around, going to 7-Eleven in the middle of the night for ice cream and burritos and even shoplifting food. By ninth grade she weighed 332 lbs., was prediabetic and “knew that what I was doing wasn’t healthy.” Luckily her path back to health began not too long afterward. When she went away to college in 2002, she started walking everywhere and lost some weight. “That was motivating,” Tindal…

Go Out & Play! GOODBYE, INDOOR WORKOUTS. HELLO, STRENGTH, CARDIO AND SUNSHINE! Exercising outdoors is like recess—it’s freeing and just plain fun. Take advantage of those good feels with this low-equipment workout designed to be done outside, where you have room to jump rope and a bench handy—as you’ll often find in parks, on boardwalks and in playgrounds. This routine from Francine Delgado-Lugo (shown here), CPT, cofounder of Form Fitness Brooklyn in New York City, combines strength and cardio through a mix of up-and-down, front-to-back and side-to-side movements that will get your heart pumping and your muscles burning out, so you improve endurance. Remember: Maintaining strong form and focusing on breathing are always important, but enjoy yourself as you sweat, says Delgado-Lugo. “For me, fitness is about moving well, building confidence and…

Schedule ‘Me Time’ Right now it’s especially important to build on the things that fulfill you every day, Dr. Kevin Gilliland, executive director of Innovation360, an outpatient counseling center in Dallas, told People. He suggests checking your weekly calendar to make sure you’re creating a schedule that’s not all work and no play. If your weekly plan is out of balance, make an appointment with yourself to do something you like that’s also good for you, such as a spin class or reading a new book. “When we deliberately put an activity we enjoy into our schedule, it’s more likely to occur,” said Gilliland. Go Easy on the Wine Adults in the U.S. consumed 14 percent more alcohol during the first year of the pandemic. “It’s okay if you’ve always had a glass or…