Ep 55: She lost 85 pounds, But Her Legs Wouldn't Change: Patty's Lipedema Story
Why Weight? Start Now!Show Notes
Have you got stubborn fat on your legs or hips that won't shift, no matter how much weight you lose? This week I'm talking with Patty from New Jersey. She was eating around 900 calories a day and the scales wouldn't move. She went on to lose 85 pounds (nearly 40 kilos), then spent another five years finding out why her legs still weren't changing. The answer was lipedema, a fat disorder many women live with for years without a diagnosis.
Patty shares how she stopped undereating, used an elimination diet to find her inflammation triggers, and now lives almost pain-free without chasing perfection. She's also honest about what diet and exercise can and can't do for lipedema fat. If you've been told to "just eat less and move more" and felt it wasn't the whole story, this episode is for you.
What You'll Learn
The early signs of lipedema Patty noticed from age 12, like lumps on her outer thighs and hooded knees
Why 900 calories a day stalled her weight loss, and how eating more (around 1,700) got the scales moving again
How daily weighing taught her about normal fluctuations instead of giving up
How an elimination diet showed that "healthy" foods like tomatoes, peppers and gluten were driving her inflammation
The honest truth: her changes reduced inflammation and pain, but not the lipedema fat itself
Simple daily habits for lipedema, from calf raises and ankle pumps to rebounding and compression
Why staying on track is focus, not obsession, and how putting yourself first changes your relationship with food
Key Moments
The 2020 Father's Day photo that made Patty decide to take things into her own hands
The 4-pound jump after a salmon dinner that once would have made her quit
Posting a swimsuit photo in a fitness Facebook group, and the stranger who said "look up lipedema"
Realising her fingers could bend again once the inflammation came down
Why Patty refuses to say she "reversed" her lipedema
Her before-and-after photo trick for nights out
What she'd tell her younger self
The One Action You Can Do to Start Now
Set aside one hour this week to plan. Write down your meals, when you'll move, and one small mindset habit, like 20 minutes in the car with the radio off, just you and your thoughts. Patty and I both swear by this. When you've planned, you feel in control, and that's where consistency starts.
Links
Follow Patty: https://www.facebook.com/pattyunfinished
Patty's elimination diet journal (Amazon): CLICK HERE
Work with me: www.whyweightacademy.com
Get my Freebie: 5 day low carb meal plan and recipes
More from Why Weight? Start Now!
Have you ever come home from holiday feeling like you've undone months of good work in a few days? I recently spent a week in Taupō with nine family members, aged 11 to 85, for my sister's 50th. My goal wasn't weight loss. It was simply to come home the same weight – and I did, without separate meals or missing out on the fun.
There are 12 weeks left until Christmas. If you’re tempted to write off the rest of 2026 and “start again in January,” this episode is for you. Twelve weeks is long enough to change how your clothes fit, how you sleep, how your blood sugars behave and how you feel walking into the room on Christmas Day.
How many times have you lost the same ten kilos? Not how many kilos in total, but how many times you’ve lost them and ended up right back where you started.
Liz’s seamstress took in her wedding dress four times. Two days before she flew to Las Vegas to get married it still wasn’t sitting right, and the seamstress finally asked her to please stop losing weight.