'Keep pushing': N.S. woman loses 220 pounds in 16 months

N.S. woman loses 200 lbs in 16 months A Nova Scotia woman who shed more than 200 pounds tracked her weight loss journey and gained tens of thousands of Instagram followers.

A Nova Scotia woman has lost over 200 pounds, and gained thousands of Instagram followers, thanks to healthy eating, unconventional workouts, and a steady dose of discipline.

“You don’t need a gym. I didn’t go to a gym,” says Nicole Hicks. “I did it all at home and just with good food and moving your body. That’s it.”

At her heaviest, Hicks weighed 460 pounds. She says she could barely walk and even simple tasks were difficult to perform.

“Everything was hard. I couldn’t go to the grocery store, you know, with my husband,” recalls Hicks. “I couldn’t go to the movies because I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to fit in the seats. Going for drives, it hurt.”

The Amherst, N.S., woman says she was in a dark place and “tired of being tired.” It was Christmas Eve, 2014 when she decided to take her own life.

“We have a locked gun cabinet and I went to the gun cabinet where the key is always in the same place, you know. It’s always in that place, and it wasn’t there,” says Hicks. “It wasn’t there that day, so it was like, you know what Nicole, you’re supposed to be here. You know, you have a purpose.”

Hicks decided it was time to make some changes. She started small, by eating healthy food and walking on a treadmill in her bedroom.

“The first day I went in there, I got on and I only lasted three minutes, and I cried and I said, ‘I can’t do this. I’m exhausted and I don’t think I can do this,’ and I was just sore. My body was hurting.”

But she stuck with it and, 16 months later, Hicks had shed 220 pounds. Now, she says choosing healthy food has become second nature, and she’s tackling every workout imaginable, both in and out of the gym.

“My advice is to keep going, to keep pushing, because this life that I’m living now, it’s so amazing,” says Hicks.

“It’s so amazing just to, like, live and be able to do things, like go to the beach and go to the movies, and, you know, walk into a mall and feel confident and be able to walk into a store and buy whatever.”

Hicks has been documenting her transformation on Instagram, where she has gained almost 200,000 followers. She is quick to point out that her journey hasn’t been easy, and she has shared both the ups and the downs on social media.

“I think this is put into our head a lot, when we do start a fitness journey, that everything should be perfect and you’re not going to have any bad days, but I’m here to tell you you’re going to have days when you feel like you can’t push anymore,” says Hicks.

“The days that you feel like you can’t go anymore -- the days that you feel the world is against you -- those are the days that you need to push even harder.”

Hicks has also pushed herself to become a certified fitness trainer so she can help others reach their weight-loss goals.

As for her own journey, Hicks says she has stopped watching the scale, and is now focusing on feeling good instead.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Natasha Pace