After always being known as “the bigger one” of her 14 siblings and being concerned for her health, a 20-year-old woman achieved her goal of losing 100 pounds while on a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail (AT) with her family.
Aubrey Bettis, 20, of Paint Rock, Texas, began her weight-loss journey at 257 pounds before having gastric sleeve surgery on December 15, 2022. Just a few months later on March 8, she took off with her mom and 14 biological siblings on a monthslong hike of the AT, she told Newsweek in an email interview.
Her mom, 48-year-old Nikki Bettis, told Newsweek that the family decided to leave the “chaos” of the world behind and embark on a 2,000-mile journey of “bonding” and “healing.” Bettis said Aubrey is her third oldest child of the 15, whose ages range from 4 to 25.
The AT spans nearly 2,200 miles of rugged wilderness across 14 Eastern U.S. states, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Maine’s Mount Katahdin. The Bettis family completed their hike in late October.
Before leaving on the family adventure, Aubrey was down to 200 pounds and lost more than 40 pounds on the trail with her family, reaching her goal of losing 100 pounds.
Aubrey Bettis, 20, hiked the Appalachian Trail with her mom and 14 siblings where she hit her goal of losing 100 pounds. The photo on the left shows Bettis before, and the photo on the right shows her after. Bettis family
Aubrey said she began to worry about her health, noting that her paternal side of the family has a history of Type 2 Diabetes and high blood pressure and said she “didn’t want to face a life on medication.”
“I also really wanted to keep up with my siblings and was never really able to participate in all the games or climb trees when they’d play,” she said. “Over time, my self-esteem sunk and only continued to get worse. As we all got older and eventually had jobs, I was always known and identified by outside people as ‘the bigger one’ or ‘the bigger kid.’ It hurt every time I heard that.”
She decided to get gastric sleeve surgery after more than a decade of trying to lose weight. Aubrey said she tried everything from a healthy diet and exercising regularly to weight-loss medications and programs but nothing worked long-term.
“I started running when I was 11 but the weight just didn’t come off,” she said. “At one point I was running 10 miles a day, but the weight just stayed on.”
With the support of her family and doctors, Aubrey said surgery was the right option for her, especially since she didn’t want to “get left behind” on the family’s Appalachian Trail trip.
In Focus
Aubrey, 20, is one of Nikki Bettis’ 15 children who hiked the Appalachian Trail. On the family adventure with her mom and siblings, she hit her goal of losing 100 pounds. .
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Now, 100 pounds down, she said she feels stronger and physically capable of activities and hobbies she never thought possible, including soccer, ice skating and rock climbing.
“I hiked and backpacked before losing all the weight and I knew I was capable of that, but I knew I didn’t want to go into a thru-hike 100 pounds overweight and struggle so much,” Aubrey said. “I also feared I’d slow everyone down since I’ve always been slower due to my size. Everything was just harder for me then. Now it’s like I have a new life.”
Aubrey said that hiking the trail has helped her hit her goal because it was daily accountability to keep moving.
“Unlike a gym, when you’re thru-hiking you can’t just say ‘I don’t feel like it today,’ and go back to sleep or avoid it,” she said. “Especially when your entire family is on trail. You wake up and don’t have a choice.”
She said she could feel herself getting stronger and the “mountains began to get easier.”
“It was a cool way to measure my progress. It also helped me develop routine and self-discipline, which I think has helped me be successful after surgery,” Aubrey told Newsweek. “The confidence I feel in myself now is exciting. I feel like I can do anything.”
While she admits that some days on the trail were downright “miserable” and extremely intense, she said the AT was the “jumpstart to beginning a lifetime of change.”
Her favorite moment on the trail was when she realized she could keep up with her siblings who hiked in the “fast crew.”
“My entire life has always been with the slow crew in everything,” Aubrey said. “I realized in Pennsylvania that I could keep up and hike with the fast crew. I wasn’t afraid of it anymore and found it easy. It was cool just being able to keep up with my siblings, something I’d struggled with for so long.”
Aubrey’s advice to anyone struggling with their weight is to never give up and to have a solid support system.
“I tried so many things for so many years,” she said. “Even though I’m young, most of my teenage years were spent feeling defeated and hopeless that I was just the ‘fat one’ out of the group. Surround yourself with supportive people that encourage you to succeed. However, the bottom line, it’s not them doing the work, it was me. I wouldn’t have succeeded at all if I didn’t have it within me to do what it takes to make the change. I just kept searching until I found the answer and what worked for me.”
Her mom described Aubrey as an inspiration.
“She is amazing, endearing and has such a gentle heart of gold while still being a complete stout-hearted warrior,” Nikki Bettis told Newsweek. “Her story is one of absolute overcoming, determination and success.”
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