At 320lbs I struggled to walk and was addicted to bingeing TV… but a simple change helped me shed HALF my weight without Ozempic or surgery

Curling up on the couch for an evening to binge your favorite show is a guilty pleasure for many – but for Jessica Beniquez, it became an addiction.

For two months, the 30-year-old from Tampa, Florida, spent her free time laying in bed and watching TV, causing her weight to soar. 

At her heaviest, she weighed 320lbs.

Admittedly, she told the Daily Mail, she had always been ‘the chubby kid in school’ and did not have the best eating habits, often feasting on pasta, chicken nuggets and French fries.

‘I was an extremely picky eater. I would never eat veggies and my go-to foods were never “healthy,”‘ she said.

While she was ‘somewhat active’ during her teenage years – she was on the cheer squad and played softball – she stopped exercising in adulthood after getting hooked on TV shows like Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill in 2017.

At the time, she had just graduated high school and started her first job, and would spend every evening after work and all day on the weekends watching the shows.

In fact, it consumed all of her free time, and she ultimately watched both series back to back from start to finish during her binge. But the more she sat in front of the screen, the more weight she put on, and within two months, she had gained 20lbs.

After finishing both shows, she was about to start another – then realized she needed to make a change. 

‘I was really just sick and tired of feeling how I felt,’ she said. 

She recalled ‘struggling’ with basic activities at her heaviest, getting out of breath just from going up the stairs or walking, and was constantly in pain or felt tired and sluggish.

‘I wanted to feel more confident,’ she added.

‘Being overweight my whole life, I never knew what it felt like to shop for [clothes for] my age because the teen section was always too small.’

Within a year, Beniquez dropped an impressive 170lbs after replacing her Netflix binges with exercise and ditching her carb-laden diet for vegetables and protein.

The first step she took was cutting out soda and fast food. Then she joined the health and wellness company Herbalife, which helped her figure out the best foods to eat and meal plan each week. 

She also implemented a calorie deficit and replaced high-sugar dishes with vegetable-forward meals, and focused on consuming smaller portions. 

‘I cut out fast food, soda, all the things I was used to. I completely changed my diet,’ she said. ‘I went cold turkey.’

As for exercise, she started by simply walking a little bit every day. She then began going to the gym, focusing on weight lifting and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts.

‘I started walking daily. Then a month into it is when I finally got a gym membership and started working out,’ she shared, adding that she initially hired a trainer to help her adjust to working out.

‘Then maybe after three months [I parted ways with the trainer]. I learned the rest as I went and just stuck to it,’ she shared.

While she admitted that making the changes was ‘hard’ at first, she explained that her drive to look and feel good ultimately pushed her to keep going.

When asked about the most difficult parts about her lifestyle changes, she said: ‘Saying no and being tempted by foods I was so comfortable eating at one point.

‘Being on my feet all day [at work] and then going to the gym; not seeing results as fast as I wanted; hitting plateaus.’

‘But I wanted it so bad,’ she added. 

Beniquez said her dramatic weight loss has made a huge positive impact on her life, explaining that her ‘confidence and energy’ have both improved immensely.

She often posts about her transformation on Instagram and TikTok under the username @GetFitWJessica, where she’s racked up 975,000 and 689,000 followers respectively.

In addition to her fitness journey, she also shares details about her daily meals and her 2018 diagnosis of stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Beniquez, now cancer-free, also offers one-on-one coaching to others who are looking for help with losing weight.

‘There’s no right way to start, you’ll learn as you go,’ she said. ‘Motivation isn’t always going to be there. Learn discipline.’