Meghan Gilbert, from Dallas, Texas, was an ugly duckling in her class due to her plump figure and overweight.
Besides neverending bullying, she ballooned to a whopping 200lbs (15st) because of an eating disorder.
To add, being in horrible relationships with her classmates she was soon diagnosed with anxiety and depression.
This is how Meghan herself describes her inner and outer world in the caption to a side-by-side photo posted on Instagram: “The girl on the left was 200 lbs of depression, anxiety, and sin. I was addicted to drugs, and I partied every night. I woke up in the morning wanting to forget that I had to wake up this morning.. my life was just..sad.”
“I hated every part of my body and being until I took one too many pills and sipped one too many drinks, waking up after 36 hours of straight sleep. Well, could be longer.”
Hopefully, 21-year-old managed to overcome her addiction to turn her life on the right pass, dropping to 137lbs 9st 11lbs.
“When I woke up from my overdose, I saw my tattoo ‘walk by faith, not by sight’ and that’s when I knew I wasn’t doing life right. The Bible PREACHES LOVE! That’s Jesus’s commandment. So that’s where I started.”
“I loved myself. I loved the gym. I loved the hardship. I loved the pain and soreness. I loved the people around me. And most of all, I loved God.”
Precisely the gym became her lifesaver as Meghan has forgotten about drugs to dive into fitness.
She added: “When you first start to lift weights, and someone pushes you to go harder, most of the time you say no I can’t do that much! But then you try, and you get one Rep out.”
“You think you can’t do it, but in reality, you can. It hurts. You build muscle by tearing it down… The same thing goes in life. You gain strength through hardship.”
“You will always have gloomy times in your life and what matters most is your mindset.”
Her story could be an excellent example for those who face bullying thinking that life has ended without even starting.
Only faith in God and merely in herself helped her to become a fitness model.
What is more, after posting such photos on IG her account quickly became viral. There are a lot of people around the thу world struggling the same problems as our today’s heroine, so that’s why now her page has almost 70 thousand online followers.
“Saying no, I can’t do it and not trying. Or saying yes, I can do it. I will try. I won’t give up, no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts. I trust You, God.”
“After the pain and trials, you end up stronger. I started at a 5lb dumbbell, and now I’m lifting a 25lb. It hurt when I first lifted that 5.. so bad, but I kept on going. To 10. It hurt. To 15. It hurt.”
“The same goes for life. Trials are like God’s gym. Building you up to prepare for what is to come next. 80 lbs down, plus a gained mindset of strength and endurance. Clean for two years and one month.”
