Body shaming isn't a nice thing to do. And while we know that, this woman here may have at least benefited from it to say the least. Tanya Rybakova was sick and tired of how she looked, and how it made her feel. So she decided to make a change.

After years or torment and isolation and weighing nearly 250 pounds, Tanya Rybakova decided to change her life in the name of fitness.


“Children were mean, so I didn’t socialise — I had no friends and I spent a lot of time just reading.”


“It was so bad I would come home from school crying and I didn’t want to go back. Being overweight took my confidence.”


The turning point came at her prom night which Tanya describes as the worst night of her life. “I was alone and crying. Even my friends didn’t talk to me, so I decided then to lose the weight,”


It took Tanya three and a half years, but she dropped an astounding 125 pounds. From obese to fitness model, Tanya became the first person in Russia to release a weight loss video on YouTube and has almost 300,000 subscribers.


After trying a number of diets, Tanya who was studying at university, decided to go to a nutritionist to learn everything about fitness training.


“I was trying a lot of things to lose weight. I would try one diet after another. But there was a lot of crap diets that were popular but not healthy.”


Now Tanya runs an online fitness guide which she hopes to translate them into English to help people around the world.


“I work with people losing weight to show them you have to change your mind first.


“It’s not just about losing weight, that’s just the first step, it’s about having confidence and being healthy physically and mentally. The biggest change is confidence as losing weight shows you can do it if you want.”