LAKELAND, Fla. -- A Lakeland mom and singer is on the cover of People Magazine.
- Rachel Saintfort gets recognized for weight loss
- People Magazine discovers Saintfort through hashtag
- Saintfort sheds 100 pounds
Rachel Saintfort’s voice wasn’t what got the popular international magazine’s attention. It was her tremendous weight loss.
Rachel Saintfort said she was at a lost for words when she learned that not only was she going to be featured, but also appear on the cover, next to the new Duchess of Sussex.
"I was just so proud. You know it just hit me finally that I did it. And you know it caught the eye of the biggest magazine in America and I am so overwhelmed,” said Rachel Saintfort.
She called it the highlight of her career. She said magazine staffers found her when posted "#100lbsdown" on her Instagram photos.
"Surreal. It goes to show you never know who's watching, who you're inspiring and where you may end up," Saintfort said.
The singer was also invited as a guest on Good Morning America, and her story was also featured on the show, "Inside Edition". The City of Lakeland gave her the key to the city for her accomplishment.
The singer is now hoping she'll end up with a record deal. She started shedding the pounds when she saw she was missing out on big opportunities because of her size.
"I remember doing a song with a gentleman, a rapper and I got the call that there was a music video out and I wasn’t in the video" Said Saintfort.
" I'm like well why didn’t he ask me to be apart of the video if I was on the song. It came out that it was because of my image," she recalled.
She weighed around 291 pounds back then. She recalled not being able to tie her shoes or cross her legs. When her daughter got picked on at school because of her weight, she said that was the last straw.
"She was like mom so and so called you fat. At that time it hit me that my daughter is suffering because of my selfish ways,” Saintfort said.
She started jogging twice a day, rain or shine. She also gave up drinking Coke.
"A day I would consume about six to eight cans of soda…I was like addicted to soda,” she said as she recalled things she gave up to lose weight.
She stopped eating fast food too. In ten months, she lost her first 100 pounds.
She’d like to lose 10 more pounds but she said her main focus now is maintaining her new figure, and working on a new album.