I am a former reality show winner. I won a healthy make over and lost a total of 101lbs over the course of about 11 months. I consider 65lbs to have been lost in a very healthy way. The rest was lost with a mixture of exercise which I loved and a bar and shake only meal plan which I hated!!! I was a good trooper, because after all I WON it. At my lowest weight at the finale I weighed 143lbs and was wearing a size 4/6.
About 4 months after the finale I went in for my routine annual exams. There were some issues found, an enlarged ovary and masses in one of my breasts. After a huge scare I found out that the cysts were benign and everything would be handled with some hormone therapy. I had never taken any type of hormones not even birth control, and my doctor informed me that they would cause me to gain weight. I was very depressed, I had gained a total of about 10lbs just trying to maintain after the show and the idea of gaining more was a devastating!
Well, I gained about 30 more pounds due to the meds and another 5lbs or so due to the depressing fact that after all my hard work I was once again FAT and feeling like I had let down so many people who believed in me. (Did I mention that this contest was televised regionally on NBC and published in a local magazine?) Ugh…
However, the real truth is that I gained back what I had lost doing the bar and shake plan. It was a total of 800 calories a day and I was working out like crazy 6 days a wk with two trainers. After the final weigh in the bar and shake Dr’s said that I would need to eat a DIET of no more than 1200 calories a day to maintain. My trainers were horrified, I am certainly not a nutritionist but even I know that is too few calories especially if you are working out like I was.
So, this is where I find myself. Determined not to gain any more weight and sure that I will be the size that I want doing it the right way! So I invite you to join me on my journey to be:
- Happy – well, I just want to stay happy cuz a really great thing about the show (and there were a few, even if the diet sucked) was that I met my BFF, Jason. And I have a really supportive family who are with me all the way!
- Fit — I want to be toned and like how I look. I will be super honest about the exercise: like, do the really fit people realize that, when you have a belly, some of those yoga positions are just not gonna happen the way they are demonstrating? Please, for the love of God, could you please show us how to modify that?! LOL
- A Role Model — I want to show other people who are in their Forties that we can do this thing! In a healthy realistic way and maintain once we get there.
- To be daring and try new things on a continual basis to show people that we don’t have to quit living!
I promise to share all that I am going through and be encouraging. Of course, I will be talking as much to myself as to anyone who cares to listen.
Be Blessed!