A 42-year-old woman gained weight from early menopause and a stressful job. She lost over 60 pounds with 3 habits.

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A 42-year-old woman gained weight from early menopause and a stressful job. She lost over 60 pounds with 3 habits.

Michelle Kloese, 42, gained weight from

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and a stressful job.

When she started a new job, she joined a health app paid for through work.

Walking every day, logging her water intake, and meal swaps helped her lose over 60 pounds.

At 40, Michelle Kloese felt like she didn’t recognize her body. In five years, she’d gained 38 pounds and developed

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,

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, and

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, a kind of foot pain caused by inflammation.

She didn’t always feel like this. In her 20s,

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was her main form of exercise, and she loved 5K races. Her body started to change in her mid-20s, when she experienced symptoms of

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, such as infertility. By her 30s, bloodwork confirmed she had

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about 15 years earlier than most women.

Then, in her mid-30s, she started a demanding job as a middle school assistant principal, often beginning before the school day and wrapping up after school hours. With less time to work out, a busy schedule, and irregular meals, she started to snack more.

“Somebody would leave a cupcake on my desk, so I’d eat that, or parents would bring in a basket of candy,” Kloese, now 42, told Business Insider.

The change in her body really struck her after a surprise trip to Ireland for her 40th birthday. “I looked at the pictures and went, ‘Oh, gosh, I need to do something different,'” she said.

Kloese lost 61 pounds over two years.Michelle Kloese

When she had just started a new, less stressful

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, Kloese learned about a

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, Personify Health, connected through the company’s insurance. The timing was perfect: She signed up, logging her steps and water intake.

She lost 38 pounds in the first year and 23 pounds the following year. Now she’s in a “weight maintenance” phase, seeking to stay within a few pounds of her current weight.

“I have so much more energy — I’m not as sluggish and tired as I was feeling all the time,” she said. The issues related to her weight, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, also went away. “I have just felt a whole lot better,” she added.

Kloese shared the three habits she started and maintains to keep the weight off.

She woke up to a full glass of water

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Kloese drank 8 ounces of water upon waking up.Personify Health/Michelle Kloese

Before, Kloese didn’t drink much water — sometimes, she’d remember to have only about 8 ounces of the

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in one day. “That’s one of the most challenging ones for me to do,” she said.

Her goal was to get to at least 72 ounces, or nine cups a day.

Tracking her intake helped. The first thing she did every morning was drink an 8-ounce glass of water and log it in the app. For the rest of the day, she’d log in “steady sips” using a marked water bottle to measure her progress. It was more manageable for her to track 2 ounces at a time rather than feel pressure to chug a lot of water at once.

Drinking water

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by curbing your appetite. It can also help you reach a calorie deficit if you swap it in for high-calorie drinks like soda.

She swapped running for walking and yoga

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Kloese practices yoga and does strength training in addition to walking 30 minutes every day.Michelle Kloese

While she used to run a lot in her 20s, Kloese’s knees and hips hurt when she tried in her 40s. She knew she needed to try something different.

When she first made a plan to lose weight, Kloese communicated with a personal trainer through an app. The trainer said that in her 40s, it was important for Kloese to focus on strength training, as we naturally lose muscle with age. Muscle building can also help with weight loss — gaining muscle boosts your metabolism and

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.

Kloese started doing at-home and online

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three to four times a week with light weights.

The rest of the time, she walked. She took part in a fitness challenge of

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a day. Weight loss-wise, she said she saw about the

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.

Now she aims to walk at least 7,000 steps a day, whether on her

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or on trails near her home in Florida. Occasionally, she trains for MammothMarches, 20-mile hikes all over the country.

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The Personify Health app highlights the minimum steps needed to reach 49,000 a week. Kloese said her goal is to always be above the line.Personify/Michelle Kloese

She also swapped out some of the strength training for yoga, which relaxes her while still

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and flexibility.

Being more active transformed her relationships with her friends. “Before, where we might’ve just picked a restaurant to hang out at, instead, we go out and do a hike,” she said.

She made simple meal swaps

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Kloese made easy swaps, like substituting french fries with sweet potato ones.Igor Paszkiewicz/Getty Images

Despite snacking on sugary treats at her old job, Kloese isn’t much of a sweets person. “I was a pasta-potato-bread kind of person,” she said. Still, she wanted to make some more

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.

Through the KickStart app, she logged her meals by taking photos of them. If she got a burger and fries, the app suggested

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for next time, like a salad or sweet potato wedges.

Eventually, she naturally made those swaps on her own, like cooking quinoa instead of white rice. She also gets premade meals through

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, which she said helps her with portion control and eating a balanced diet when she’s busy.

“Those were all small changes that evolved over time,” she said.

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