How We Lost 100 Pounds!

SEVEN PEOPLE SHARE THEIR STORIES OF WEIGHT LOSS, WITH AND WITHOUT GLP-1S. WHAT IT REALLY TOOK TO GET HEALTHY—AND STAY THAT WAY—AND HOW IT TRANSFORMED THEIR LIVES

- EILEEN FINAN

Samantha Milton

Age: 29 Height: 6' Lives in: Ashburn, Va.

Job: Content creator

About five years ago Samantha Milton's life was in crisis.

A mom of three, she'd just told her husband, who was struggling with alcoholism, that he needed to move out.

The "earth-shattering" thought of parenting on her own made her confront her own health: "Something had to change." She'd been conscious of her weight since first grade, when she went on her first diet After being diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome at 12, she began a cycle of disordered eating and weight gain, reaching 400 lbs.

Financially struggling, she didn't have time or money for a trainer or gym membership, so she started small. On her four-hour car trips to take her oldest, who has autism, to therapy, she started choosing lowercalorie, higher-protein fast-food options: "I learned to adapt my old lifestyle."

In 2022 she began posting about her progress-and her fastfood hacks (her TikTok of her Chick-fil-A kale salad with chicken strips and honey hot sauce has 8 million views). Now a full-time influencer with more than 4 million followers and multiple endorsement deals, she maintains her 140-lb weight by eating fewer calories than she's burning most days, working out on a treadmill and taking GLP-1 drugs, which she started two years ago and now microdoses at a monthly cost of $299, and which she says help treat her PCOS symptoms. She's also lost 11 lbs. through four skin removal surgeries (costing more than $100,000, paid for by her social media earnings).