How I Lost 25 Pounds and How You Can Too!

Me minus bad eating habits. I'm about 147 lbs in this photo... nearly 25 lbs lighter!

It has been nearly 3 months since this beauty queen embarked on a new eating lifestyle; an eating lifestyle which has helped me lose about 25 lbs.!

Being an overweight ex-beauty queen for years was not fun, let me tell you! I once had a hater who called me disgusting things for letting myself go – and while I’d rather be overweight any day than be a hater, it was still painful to hear because it WAS THE TRUTH!

White clothing told the truth about my unhealthy lifestyle... but this is the PAST now!

People following my Facebook photo page and Twitter will see that I didn’t lose weight by starving myself or eating only boring food. Please look at the photo below.  A meal I ate during a recent 10-day trip to Manchester where I ate well but only gained 1 lb! This is the kind of food I’ve been eating – colorful, varied and delicious!

Heathy Food doesn't have to be BORING!

I also didn’t lose 25 pounds by spending all my free time huffing and puffing in the gym.

On the contrary, I had no gym-time during the first month and a half of my new eating lifestyle thanks to a bum knee. And yet, with this new eating lifestyle I was able to lose weight.

But let me make this VERRRY clear to you… I strongly believe that exercise is an important part of taking care of one’s body.  It just so happened that my knee sustained a minor sprain when I started dieting. But now that my knee has recovered, I am back to working out – albeit verrrry carefully so as not to hurt it again.

There are two main things that I attribute my successful weight loss to:

Love Dr. Mike Moreno!

1) Dr. Mike Moreno’s 17 Day Diet (I found his book when I was browsing Fully Booked at Serendra last August 2011). Click here to see the Official 17 Day Diet  Facebook Site.

There are a few other diets that are just as great as Dr. Mike Moreno’s. One of them is the South Beach Diet, which helped me lose weight a few years ago when it was the rage, however, due to mild alcoholism and stress-eating at night, I gained it all back and even added more pounds. That is why I believe that #2 below is what helped me (and helps me) stay on track.

2) Uploading ALL my Food Photos onto my Facebook and eventually on my Twitter.

It seems like accountability to my Facebook and Twitter friends works for my ‘exercise pyschology’. I love it when people like and comment on my food choices and my weight loss. It is SO encouraging to have all these people behind me. Plus, after taking a photo of my food it takes me about 5 minutes to upload it… so I can’t just jump in and eat like a pig! LOL!

I am a strong believer in accountability and I know that if you can find the right person or group that you will be accountable to, you CAN lose weight!

Here is a photo of my transformation from a 170lb Rubenesque Beauty to a 145lb Statuesque Beauty:

Left photo take August 1, 2011 (170 lbs) Middle Photo Taken: Sept 1, 2011 (158 lbs) Right: Oct 17, 2011 (147 lbs)

As you can see, I still have a bit of a Kangaroo Pouch even after the amazing weight-loss of nearly 25 lbs, but that only means I need to keep up the healthy lifestyle and use exercise to shape my body better.

While Dr. Mike Moreno’s 17 Day Diet book and uploading my photos on Facebook and Twitter were the most obvious reasons for my successful weight-loss, there are other factors that contributed to it…

- I believe that God wants me to be slim and healthy.

- I have a foundation of 8 years of steady working-out in the gym, doing cardio, pilates etc.

-  I have a very supportive hubby Ron who works out with me and NEVER teases me about my looks and my diet.

- I have a beautiful daughter Diandra, also a fitness buff, who encourages me and diets with me.

- I have key friends who prayed for me when I was fighting alcoholism.

- I have a huge and growing collection of magazines and books on fitness and food which I always read.

-  I persevered in spite of the gazillion failed attempts to lose weight over the past 8 years!

I am hoping that this blog will only make me more focused on staying healthy! I pray I never go back to the fat old me, a slave to food and my cravings. Thanks for reading!

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