Photo credit: Instagram/mathildehbroberg

A woman from Aarhus, Denmark, who was once classified as “morbidly obese” after tipping the scales at 268 pounds, now works as a physical trainer and sportswear model after dropping more than half of the weight in a period of four years.

Mathilde Broberg, 22, lost the excess pounds partially by cutting out junk food, exercising avidly and following the “teaspoon diet,” where she measured out her food and ate with a teaspoon to ensure that the portion sizes weren’t larger than the size of a flat-out hand. This in effect helped “trick” her brain into thinking she was eating more than she really was.





In a candid interview, with the Daily Mail, the 5’9” beauty describes the painful experience of growing up as “the obese child.” She said she missed out on things that her friends participated in, such as swimming and running around. More than anything, she was afraid that she wouldn’t have been able to keep up with them.

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Even going to amusement parks sometimes caused her grief.

“I feared going on rollercoasters as I didn’t think I’d fit into the seat,” she said in her interview. “One time I was close to being kicked off a ride as the latch was struggling to pull over me.”

It was only after seeing a photo of herself performing in a school production that Broberg became painfully aware that she needed to lose the weight. She said there was no way she could go to college looking how she did.





“I’ve never been skinny before in my entire life – I’ve always been obese and fat. But one day I had enough!” Broberg said. “I felt extremely trapped in that body and then I started hating myself, because it really felt like an unstoppable situation!”

It wasn’t easy, but Broberg began to completely overhaul her eating and exercise habits. A typical diet before her weight loss journey featured fattening foods, such as buns with butter and chocolate pieces for breakfast, huge pasta salads with fattening dressing and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and spaghetti Bolognese topped with cheese and a few glasses of milk for dinner. For snacks she loved to munch on massive bags of chips, chocolates and cake. Overall she estimates that she took in about 3,500 calories per day.

“My stomach must have been the size of a horse’s after all those years of overeating, I was always eating way more than I was supposed to,” she admitted.





In 2012, Broberg had one last piece of cake and then began her incredible weight loss journey. She was 16-years-old, an ample size 20/22, weighed 268 pounds and had a BMI of 40.6 — a BMI of more than 40 is considered severely obese, a healthy BMI should be in the range of 18.5 – 24.9.

In addition to following the teaspoon diet and working out (from fall 2014 to summer 2015 she worked out six times per week, today she works out a minimum of three times per week), Broberg revamped her eating patterns.

For breakfast she’d consumed a small portion of low fat Greek yogurt, low sugar granola and a banana, for lunch homemade soup (hint: you’ll consume less sodium that way!) and for dinner she’d eat a small portion of salad or veggies. She ditched the chips and chocolate snacks for apples and protein bars.

Breakfast ????☀️ The most important meal of the day, and I love breakfast soooo much! And it is like this every morning ???????? 30 gram oats cooked in the microwave with cinnamon, chia seeds, hemp seeds, stevia topped of with half an apple, half a banana and 6 almonds + 2 tbs Skyr with different toppings and urtekram müsli + one boiled egg ❤️ A photo posted by Mathilde Høj Broberg ⬇️ 139lbs (@mathildehbroberg) on Jan 30, 2016 at 12:01pm PST





By September 2015, at 20-years-old, she dropped to a svelte 125 pounds (size 2/4) – a number that has since increased to a fit 149 pounds (size 4/6) after Broberg embarked on a serious weight lifting schedule.

“After losing weight, my belly looked just as large as it did when I was heavily obese, it was a tummy of harsh old fat, I really hated it,” she said in her interview. Following her extreme weight loss, in 2015 Broberg opted for a government-paid tummy tuck to rid herself of the extra, saggy skin.





She continued to tone her body after the surgery and vamped up her weight lifting.

“Keep this note to yourself if you have to loose a lot of weight – You’re skin will not follow with the rest of the body! Start lifting heavy and build muscles AFTER you’ve lost a good amount of weight, in that way you’ll be able to tighten up your skin as much as possible because you’re gaining muscles,” she advised.

Today, Broberg works as a personal trainer and sportswear model — her body transformation is inspiring thousands of others to drop the unhealthy weight.





“If I can do it so can you! Anything is possible it you want enough – never stop believing in yourself and stay strong,” she said in a recent post. “Don’t waist time on the right time to come (to lose weight) – there is no perfect time, you just have to start and never look back. It will be tough and it will feel like an endless road, but you will make if you just don’t quit! How much do you want it?”

What do you think of Broberg’s extreme weight loss transformation? Let us know by tweeting @YahooStyleCA!



