{"id":243954,"date":"2025-10-27T18:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T18:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/243954\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T18:12:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T18:12:16","slug":"she-had-a-bad-back-and-doctors-orders-to-lose-weight-how-one-woman-dropped-80-lbs-with-little-exercise-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/243954\/","title":{"rendered":"She Had a Bad Back and Doctor’s Orders to Lose Weight. How One Woman Dropped 80 Lbs. with ‘Little Exercise’ (Exclusive)"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n

Karalene Aday tried nearly every diet and even gastric bypass surgery to lose weight, but nothing seemed to work<\/p>\n

After her doctor told her she must lose weight, she began the Mayo Clinic Diet along with a GLP-1 medication<\/p>\n

The combination enabled her to lose 80 lbs. in 16 months with “very little exercise”<\/p>\n

Karalene Aday tried nearly every diet and even gastric bypass surgery to lose weight, but nothing seemed to stick.<\/p>\n

The 58-year-old from Coon Rapids, Minn., tells PEOPLE she knew she had to make a change when \u201cI had complete labs done and everything came back high and not right. And my doctor told me the whole answer to this is to lose weight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Complicating matters was Aday\u2019s chronic bad back<\/a>, which made exercise a challenge. She started to research different approaches: \u201cI came across Mayo Clinic Diet<\/a> and I’m like, ‘Wow!’ I don’t even think of it as a diet, it’s more of a lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n

She started the program in May 2024.<\/p>\n

\"Karalene<\/p>\n

Karalene Aday<\/p>\n

Karalene Aday struggled with her weight for years.<\/p>\n

The program, she explained, offers 8 different, but easy-to-follow meal plans. She started with the keto<\/a>-based plan, but swapped to \u201cthe simple plan, which is what it says \u2014 very simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor breakfast this morning, I had a cup of cottage cheese and some grapes,\u201d she says of her current meal plan. \u201cAnd then for lunch, I plan on having a salad with chicken in it. And for dinner, I’m gonna make portobello mushroom pizzas. And then fruit and vegetables are unlimited.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan, she explained, along with the GLP-1 medication Zepbound<\/a> to \u201cstop the food noise,\u201d helped her lose 80 lbs. in 16 months. \u201cI’ve never been able to maintain it, and this is so doable,\u201d she tells PEOPLE. \u201cMy labs are golden compared to a year and a half ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six months after she began the Mayo Clinic Diet, she needed foot surgery for a cyst on her toe but continued to manage the weight loss without workouts. Aday tells PEOPLE. \u201cI do try to walk, but with foot surgery and my back and everything else, I have had very little exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Karalene<\/p>\n

Karalene Aday<\/p>\n

Karalene Aday lost 80 lbs.<\/p>\n

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Even when she struggled with personal setbacks, she was able to stick with the program by finding support in Mayo’s Facebook group. \u201cI have just had one challenge after another, and normally I would have just turned to food,” she said. But when her mom died, “I reached out to the Facebook group and said, ‘My biggest cheerleader’s not here.’ \u201d<\/p>\n

The group kept her from giving up. \u201cI had like 250 responses from other members just cheering me on,\u201d Aday tells PEOPLE.<\/p>\n

Now, she\u2019s focused on maintaining her weight, but advises others looking to kickstart a weight-loss journey that \u201crather than looking at whatever diet it may be, look at it more as a lifestyle plan. It’s your new way for the rest of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Karalene<\/p>\n

Karalene Aday<\/p>\n

Karalene Aday lost 80 lbs. in 16 months.<\/p>\n

Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for\u00a0PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\n

And, she says, \u201cthe weight doesn’t come on overnight, and it’s not gonna come off overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I could get myself advice back when I started, I would have told myself to just be patient,\u201d she says. \u201cGive yourself some grace and if you hit a plateau or you gain, just realize it’s just that your body adjusting, just keep going. Don’t give up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW Karalene Aday tried nearly every diet and even gastric bypass surgery to lose weight, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,407,31933,84,114532,114534,114533],"class_list":{"0":"post-243954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-gastric-bypass-surgery","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-karalene-aday","14":"tag-karalene-aday-karalene-aday","15":"tag-mayo-clinic-diet"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}