- Joined
- Aug 28, 2019
April Lauren is a 37 year old
and then again with her video "How I got fat? Why I'm morbidly obese? | Losing 200 lbs | Weight Loss Journey | Workout with me"
If you click through those links, you'll notice that her normal videos only reach about 1/10th the videos of the two above, and she's been chasing that high ever since.
But who is April?
Fast facts - April was born 9/29/1984 and her husband Kenny was born 4/14/1991.
Kenny is in the US military, and April is a dependapotamus. If you live in the US, your tax dollars support their lifestyle.
April is 37 years old and her husband way younger. They were married in June 2014, when Kenny was 23 and April was 29. They're Mormon, albeit socially since neither of them seems to participate in their local church activities or have any friends within that community, and April has been under a lot of pressure to conceive since the biological clock is ticking.
We have speculated in the FA thread that this may have been the reason for her ballooning up this quickly into their marriage. She had started gaining weight before the wedding - she had mentioned having needed to adjust her wedding dress - and by the end of their first year as husband & wife had transformed into the lard ball we know and adore.
So, April's weight loss is currently motivated by the desire / pressure to conceive. She's seen a doctor in early October, and he told her she needed to lose 70 more pounds before even getting a referral to a fertility clinic. Following those news, April's weight loss has stagnated even more, and she has admitted gaining weight in November.
Her arc words are, "you can't rush your healing", and she seems to be under the impression that if she doesn't lose 1lbs per month, which is her speed as a full time weight loss fitspo youtuber, then she will "crash diet and have 7 or 8 miscarriages" (direct quote from her latest vlog). It's part of the reason that makes her cow-worthy.
Beyond that, April is a compulsive consumer. When her vlogs aren't centered around her half-assed efforts to walk or go to the gym, she showcases shit she buys. She has an obsession with Christmas decorations - she says she spent their monetary wedding gifts on them, and will throw money at anything that fills the void in her soul that the food can't.
April made a 48 minute video about Fabletics. The girl just must consume. She has 12 different "Powerhold" leggings models that she bitches about. Fucking 12 variants of the same leggings that she doesn't even like. Choice quotes: "I don't like the print".
"These ones have a pocket under my stomach where my thighs rub together and chafe".
"These baby pink ones make me look naked".
"The fabric is too thin there".
"I fell in love with the pictures online but I don't like how it looks on me".
"The elastic is painful."
"I'm sure the plus-size models wear shapewear underneath because they don't look like they do online".
"I can literally clear the dog hair off my couch using the Powerhold leggings".
She says you can't return many of these items because Fabletics changes their name and makes them ineligible for refunds, that their customer service is terrible, and that the quality varies a lot even within the same model.
She spent $50 on a Fabletics sports bra, and the first time she put it on, it snapped. "I feel like it's common". And none of their bras are apparently supportive.
April had to throw shirts and joggers away after washing them twice because "they were literally unwearable".
"Men's stuff is better. The quality's better, the stitching's better..."
I put her in radio mode after the leggings' bit so I have no idea about the number of other articles of clothing she has from them, but it's probably way too much. Either way, judging by her comments, I really fail to see why she keeps buying from that brand. It's absurd. Shit's overpriced and borderline a scam.
Edit: April didn’t spill any tea about Fabletics. She just went over their clothes and complained. She didn’t elaborate on her “terrible experiences with customer support” or anything. It’s as vanilla as it goes.
A more accurate title for her video should’ve been “Reviewing overpriced sports-y tarps for the undiscerning, terminally-ill consumer”
- @Azovka
She also seems to dislike cooking, as her Kenny and her eat out most of the time or else buy frozen meal prep, as anyone should when trying to lose weight. But it's okay guys, because she always "choses the healthiest option", and by that she means "salads" which feature half a cow for a few leaves of lettuce. So much for a stay-at-home wife.
In one of her vlogged conversations with her husband, she mentions that he initially wanted a traditional waifu that would cook, clean, and get him kids, when they met, and instead he ended up with her. Kenny then makes that face, before calling her "lame".
She and Kenny live in either Fayetteville, or at least the surrounding area.
17 months into her full-time weight loss journey (again, it is important to emphasize the fact that this is her job, as she hasn't worked ever since getting fired a couple of years ago, and Kenny is the sole breadwinner in the family), April is still morbidly obese, and still cannot walk 1 mile for time (a very stupid challenge that she attaches too much importance to) in under 15 minutes. She is also still out of breath when going down the stairs. So much for a fitness queen.
April is adamant to never cheat on her diet, that she doesn't get cravings, she only shows herself to eat healthy fitness foods and her doing 75 hard. During 75 Hard she ate out daily despite this being against the rules and she also *almost* cheated on her diet by eating some oatmeal but it exploded in the microwave, so she didn't (LOL). This can be found in the #oatmealgate video.
The video where she got her metabolism tested and was told she is basically healthy at a swelt 260lbs and should eat around 3300 calories a day is also pretty hilarious.
She believed that losing an additional 30lbs would make her healthy and she should be eating 3300 calories to "fuel" her extremely intense exercise routine. She decided to stick to 2500 instead and has been gradually gaining since then.
April and Kenny have two German Shepherds that she doesn't exercise unless she gets called out about it, after which you will see them appear for the next several vlog episodes. Her dogs are as fat as she is and she has no excuse to not exercise them properly because walking is her main form of exercise and she is at home all day long.
It has been called to our attention that the dogs' knees prorate backwards and that this is because they are so top-heavy. No dogs should be obese but it's especially bad for German Shepherds because it aggravates their hip dysplasia.
Finally, she seems to be completely reluctant to do the one thing she needs to do on her "journey to lose 200lbs" and that is track her food properly. She writes down arbitrary numbers in a notebook that are pulled from thin air, she is rarely seen to actually weigh anything out and doesn't seem to want to track her food intake because of a fear of getting an eating disorder. April can only eat whatever she wants without tracking and pray to the gods that results in weightloss, or eat 1200 calories - there is no middle ground of eating a bit more calories but actually tracking everything she stick in to her mouth.
To sum up, April is a fat, terminally-ill consumer that pretends to be a fitspo guru while struggling with adapted DEKA challenges and losing 1lbs per month (on a good month). She claims that "you can't rush your healing" to justify her plateauing for half a year by now ever since losing those first 70lbs, and believes that by pouring enough whey protein into her every meal and hoarding Fabletics leggings, it will be enough to convince her audience that she is indeed on an "obese to beast" journey.
Also, she looks like a giant toddler half the time, and has the temper to match, especially when her Stepford Wife façade cracks, and she gets pissed at her hubby or the "haters".
The Before-Times
April has actually done a decent job of covering her past life, but here's what we do know.
April once ran a blogspot blog which is now invite-only, but here's what we've gleaned from archives, etc.
The 'My faith' link on the bottom of the page links directly to website of the Latter Day Saints in later years. But in 2015 and before, the blog had links at the top of the page with a section 'Meet the Browns' and earlier 'Our Story' that directed to a url ending in faith.html.
The posts about courting are all from 2015. They met at church. It seems a pretty normal dating story.
The 'My faith' link on the bottom of the page links directly to website of the Latter Day Saints in later years. But in 2015 and before, the blog had links at the top of the page with a section 'Meet the Browns' and earlier 'Our Story' that directed to a url ending in faith.html.
The posts about courting are all from 2015. They met at church. It seems a pretty normal dating story.
Weight Gain
April was a slim, tall child. She was always outdoors and active.
Her father was in the military. He was stationed in a navy base at Washington State. When she was in third grade they moved to Grand, Conneticut. When she was 9, she needed a size 10 shorts and became conscious of her body, feeling 'fat'. Her Mom dropped her to school in this shorts, but she went to a local playground and cried.
She thought she was enormous, and traces her unhealthy relationship with food, and body image, to then.
She hit a growth spurt, leaned out, and they moved to Georgia. Age 10, she was into cycling, reading, babysitting, had a good friend group, and was happy. She was looking forward to middle school. Then they moved, she didn't say where. She began developing, got boobs, was remarked on, and felt depressed. She hid in books, shied away from others, and got heavy. April shows a photo with her and friends.
In eight grade she was 160 pounds. Then high school came around. She got a gym membership, and got a job that wasn't working for her grandparents, they owned bowling centers. She started working at a young age.
She worked in retail, and she loved staging the clothes, going to her little workout, then going to work. Most days she'd have a Subway salad and a soda, and that's all she'd eat for the whole day, and she lost some weight. Then her grandmother died. This hit the family hard and every year after April gained a little bit more weight.
'It wasn't 300lb, but it was up there..'
April was raised Southern Baptist and she decided to join the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.
She had vary (various?) routines as far as church activities and stuff. She got very involved with.. (gulps).. Church, and so many things came into play that pulled her out of her depressive state. April got her first professional job, loved it, and her little sister came to live with her (she's mentioned nothing about moving out, from the family home, or where to).
April went to a place called Tuscaloosa Bariatrics, at the recommendation of her gynaecologist. 'Tuscaloosa Bariatrics. Tuscaloosa Bariatrics is a place you can go to get assistance with losing weight. She didn't do any shots or pills or anything, but she did buy their food supplements, replacing all her food intake with protein modified foods. She did a 'protein sparing modified fast'. She ate five supplements a day, totaling about 800 cals, for six months.
She then stopped Tuscaloosa Bariatrics, but continued to lose weight. The next step in her professional development involved moving across the country. April then started a yoga practice and went to yoga almost every single day. Running, working out, and yoga all helped her continue to lose weight.
Then she made her way to Provo, Utah.
It was a wonderful time in her life. She met her amazing husband, dated and got engaged and then she went on birth control, not for the first time, but for the first time in her adult life.
'Let's talk about what birth control did for me.' Immediately, within three weeks, she gained about 20 pounds 'this is just, like, water..'
April went back to the doctor, who changed birth control, and she continued to gain weight. The night before her wedding, her Mom had to alter April's dress, luckily her Mom had the skills to figure it out for her.
By the time they got to their first year anniversary she weighed over 250 pounds. From that point forward, she just gained weight.
Until she decided she would make a change. She got serious, and for about a month she did so much exercise. She was watching what she ate. She watched an interview of Halle Berry doing the ketogenic diet, and decided she'd do it, too. For a month, that's what April did, and then she had a mishap at work.
She was climbing a ladder at work, lost her balance, and hopped slash fell down and when she landed, she destroyed the tendon in her ankle.
Her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament, band of tissue that helps connects your thigh bone to your shin) tore, her MCL (medial collateral ligament, band of tissue on the inside of the knee, also connects thigh bone to the bone of the lower leg) destroyed her meniscus (cartilage in the knee, acts as shock absorber) in knee, and broke her fibula (the thinner bone in the lower leg, runs down the lateral aspect of the leg from knee to ankle). She was immobile for a few months. She couldn't walk. It took her almost a year to walk normally again.
For that year she maintained. Well, she lost about 30 pounds, so then, she lost that 30 pound throughout the surgeries and throughout the physical therapies she kept that weight off. She ate a very ketogenic diet, cause that was her doctors orders.
Her doctor recommended she read 'Fat for Fuel' which is a very clean version of the ketogenic diet. She was able to do that, and then that August, so almost at the year mark, she and her husband decided she would do some keto again, and she did some YouTube videos.
The entire time her husband was deployed, she did YouTube videos.
The timeline below is from her "How I got fat" video.
She had a happy athletic childhood. She wore a size 10 when she was 9, but she was also VERY tall for her age (100th percentile). All kid photos show a normal child.
She gained some weight in 8th grade, but lost it within a year after getting her first job and being more active. She TRIES to say she gained all that weight gradually throughout high school and college, but then shows pics of a pretty, normal weight high school girl. No fatty pics from high school.
She doesn't show any college pics, suspiciously, and then says she graduated at 300 lbs. She also doesn't say ANYTHING about what was going on for the presumably four years of college.
So basically she blimped out completely once she was feeding herself in college. Normal to 300 lbs in roughly 4 yrs.
After she got her first job, she went to bariatrics clinic and lost weight on a doctor prescribed 800 calorie high protein diet. No surgery. Then she lost even more weight and got genuinely athletic, jogging every day and going to yoga every day. Sounds like she was thin for a few years at least.
- @Clotso Coof
Height: 5'2"
Starting weight: 352.8 lbs
Weight as of December 8th, 2021: 284.1 lbs
Weight loss
While April started her rise to fame by claiming she was going to lose all the weight, she has since pivoted to "Healthy Living" as her "brand".
Here's what she looked like a year ago:
This is one month ago:
This is one month ago:
Here's the thing, though. Before the viral video, April openly admitted (on her old Instagram) that she was unhappy at her size, and "couldn't wait" to lose the weight.
Note the hashtags
Note also how the year disappears in these last two.
Secret Histories
This isn't April's first attempt either. She has a number of deleted videos on her channel which show that she's been at this for years - a fact which goes against her current narrative as to when she gained the weight. A full list of the deleted videos is detailed in this post and contains such highlights as:
- April's attempts to be a cleaning/home-goddess youtuber
- April's attempts to be a haul youtuber
- April's adventures with Keto
- Kenny deployment saga
- Forays into movie and TV reviews
- And more!
April vs. Exercise
It took her 38 minutes to do the DEKA. And she had to pause between every challenge to catch her breath and drink her protein shake too, when the goal is to go as fast as possible. Can you believe it's been over a year since she's started working out full time? Truly, what an impressive performance.
And yeah, that medal means nothing given how modified her DEKA was. It's more of a participation trophy. The 10 challenges were: the lunges, the box step up, the rowing, the medicine ball situps, the ski erg, the farmers' carry, the bike, the medicine ball shoulder overs, the burpees, and the trolley push / pull.
Not even half way through, she states in her voice over that "unfortunately for me, having modified my lunges and the step ups until this point, it made the things that I normally do well and do easily significantly harder". [...]"I was gassed, and this is when it set in that maybe I haven't prepared as much as I could've".
Her workouts are totally retarded also, thinking she will burn 7-800 calories from waddling along for an hour to do a mile and doing weird body weight circuits with burpees she is unable to complete with any decent form. In fact, most of her workouts are lackluster and performed with terrible form, yet she believes herself to be like Tia Clair Toomey doing super intense WODs. Most of these are 20 minute circuits that normal people would do as a warm up.
It's actually sort of maddening in the sense that she could be so much more successful on YT if she took her "fat to fit" journey seriously.
April and Kenny
April's husband Kenny clearly regrets his life choices, and there are some who believe he might be using her as a beard.
What he married:
What he got:
At one point Kenny was deployed and gone for 264 days. The timeline for April's life is a little iffy but it seems like she lost a bunch of weight just before meeting Kenny, they got engaged rather quickly after meeting and she immediately started gaining weight, then they said their vows and he was deployed. When he returned she was peak obese, please enjoy some screenshots from the reunion.
Imagine your spouse being a bit chunky when you leave for a long work trip and upon returning finding out they have been transformed into a butter huffing creature, and that creature has 2 cameras with them because they need badly to publicly document as many cuddly smoochie pictures as you will allow. The fact that April isn't embarrassed of this video is why she's a cow.
She sat there editing this shit, saw his facial expressions in the stills at the end and was like "yep just my super happy hubs loving life and being happy to see me" when he looks so bummed and unenthused. Can we get one smile where you don't look constipated? She's your blushing bride bro.
More portraits of a man in love:
A great example of Kenny's attitude can be found in this pair of Instagram posts from the same photoshoot.
First, April:
And then Ken:
Despite his attitude towards April, however, he does seem to spend an awful lot of time watching the comments sections on her social media.
Kenny's activity on the channel:
Ken responding to a "fan"
April's Stupid Podcast(s)
April also runs a podcast (two podcasts but they're the same thing) ostensibly focused on high-intensity interval training (HIIT) called "Wake Up Bright, Your HIIT Podcast" which is also crossposted to YouTube so you can sit along and pretend you're in the same Zoom call. She's also on/in the "Balanced and Bright Podcast with April Lauren and Jenna Pellikka".
April vs. The Fitness Community
Every Damn Day Fitness / Alan Roberts
A lot of people's first introduction to April was through a video on the channel of Every Damn Day Fitness/Alan Roberts/Angry Bald Guy on July 31 2020. Alan reviewed April's first weightloss videos and praised her for having a healthy mindset to weightloss and for facing that her obesity was a serious issue. April was lauded in the comments as someone who was not like Chantal or other weightloss youtubers.
Sweet summer children
Chikara Transformations / Ilona
Chikara made the first video on April the 25 of January 2021: "BodyBuilder Reacts To April Lauren What I Eat In A Day - Keto?"
Before then, she has made vids on Foodie Beauty, Amberlynn Reid, and several others. The video above was made by viewer request and primarily consists of Ilona calling out April for not being completely honest, about what she eats. Ilona is to the point and since April runs on asspats, she cant take the criticism.
At the time of writing, Chikara Transformations has 18 videos on April on her channel, with one of the more popular being the below, in which she challenges April to stick to a predetermined meal plan.
(Re-)Discovery of the Old Blog
In January, 2023, Kiwifarms users @Jane Eyre and @Azovka managed a deep dive into April's old blog content, discovering such notable facts as:
Baby boy Julio was a birthday present and born on the 4th of July:
April really did want to be a housewife and homemaker, stating that what she wanted more than anything else was "... to be a mother, a wife and keeper of my family's home."
Many of her current diet and exercise endeavors mirror what she was doing 10 years ago:
She was doing "marathon training" back in 2015:
And that a "bit brighter" thing started as far back as 2022:
Much more detail in the original posts:
Jayne Eyre April blog post #2,983
Jayne Eyre April Blog post #2,990
The Cycle
As this thread has evolved, a cycle has been observed! Bear it in mind, new reader, as you progress.
Image credit: @Red flag
Links
YouTube Channel: AprilLauren
TikTok: @april.lauren (brainans version: @april.lauren )
Instagram: @wakeupbright (picuki version: @wakeupbright)
Kenny's Instagram (picuki link): @kennyfbrown4
Keto Instagram: @ketobright
Facebook: loveaprillauren
Podcast: Wake Up Bright, Your HIIT Podcast
Twitter: @loveaprillauren
This private information is unavailable to guests due to policies enforced by third-parties.
Old/Inactive
Inactive Yoga channel: April Lauren Yoga
Old Twitter (mostly unused): @wakesupbright
Old abandoned instagram (picuki link): @backtobrightandfit
Old blog (can't be viewed without google login): wakeupbright.blogspot.com
Pinterest (unused since 2015): pinterest.com/wakeupbright
Kenny's old twitter: @ColonelViper
Special thanks:
@Azovka, @RainbowStarlight, @Artificial Baits, @JamalActimel, @Dr. God, @beanbag in a hurry, @Lucille's Brands, @The Emperor Skeksis, @KifflomKween, @The Emperor Skeksis, @That's my purse, @The Lychee Queen, @Least Concern, @smallmilk, @Kitty kitty cat, @Clown Baby, @thejackal
@Jane Eyre
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