How I lost 45 LBS and my tips for success!

(I am currently the owner of a spectacular fitness&nutrition blog! Check it out for good tips, tricks and recipes! http://fitfabflawless.wordpress.com)



I've had 21 long years of life and I haven’t been skinny since I was 10. My mother didn’t die, I wasn’t depressed or made fun of erratically, and I didn’t eat my feelings. I didn’t have an excuse. I just loved food and didn’t like exercising. I was lazy. I ate my way up to 220 lbs on my graduation day from high school in 2008. On my 5’5” frame, I didn’t wear it well. But somehow, I didn’t even realize I was fat. I mean, I guess I’ve always known it, but it never phased me. After high school, I became less and less okay with being overweight. I tried many ‘fad diets’ and quick fixes that ended faster than they started. I didn’t know the first thing about nutrition. The healthiest thing I had eaten in my life was what lunch they served at school and even then I’d slather it up with mayonnaise and ranch dressing. I was in over my head and every weight loss attempt that I tried was an utter failure.

I met my boyfriend in the beginning of 2009 while I was on vacation in Los Angeles. Our relationship for the next year would be long distance (him in California and me in Indiana.) That whole year was filled with the sheer excitement of falling in love mixed with many many months apart and a few short plane trips to visit one another. Needless to say, diet and exercise was the last thing on my mind. I was falling in love for the first time. I don’t think my brain thought about anything but him for a year straight. At the end of 2009, I packed up and moved to San Francisco with him. This was a real leap of faith considering at this point- we had spent a total of maybe two weeks together in person. Making the big move was the best decision I’ve ever made. We were together day and night and I didn’t want anyone’s company but his. Needless to say, every day we spent together was obviously reason enough for a celebratory dinner! We ate out a lot. And he wasn’t a small boy, either. By December 2010, he was pushing 310 lbs and I had (somehow, without effort) gotten down to 202.


I didn’t have a point of realization that I needed to lose weight. It was a rather normal day for me, actually. I was watching Rachael Ray one morning and there was a young girl on the show, very over weight, and she was trying to lose 70 LBS by prom. They did ALL the work for this girl. They made her a diet plan, they paid for her food, they created her exercise plan- probably bought her a gym membership. There was no way she could fail, but she did. This was my lightbulb moment. I realized that this girl had all of the tools she could possibly need, and she still couldn’t overcome her poor willpower. And here I am, thinking that I can’t exercise without a gym membership and I’m too broke to get one. I can’t eat healthy because it’s too time consuming and expensive. I can’t work out because I don’t have time. None of those things were the problem. I just didn’t want it bad enough and that’s all it really comes down to. I had a man in my life who was completely in love with me and the lumpy body that I had, so why would I need to change it? For me. That’s why. That’s the day when I started wanting it enough.

That was December 13th, 2010. The next day I went out and bought a gym membership and my boyfriend and I tackled the grocery list for Dr. Ian’s: Four Day Diet. We tied the diet in with an hour a day of exercise at the gym six days a week and the next month, I was down 10 lbs. There high that I got, and still get, when I see the number going down on that scale is just euphoric. I still live for that feeling. After a month of that diet and lots of research, we decided to just make simple substitutions into our every day life. Such as: eating wheat bread instead of white, olive oil instead of butter, and skim milk instead of Vitamin D. We kept that up along with consistently going to the gym and today, I’m sitting here typing to you in Yoga pants as I just got home from a Zumba class. Almost a year later, I’m down to 156.5 lbs and my boyfriend has gone from 309 lbs to now, a sexy 220!


I have never been more proud of myself than I am when I look at those pictures side by side. I did this all by myself. I researched for hours on the internet about healthy living. I talked to lifestyle coaches, personal trainers, and exercised every possible source of information my brain could handle. I even eventually found a love for exercise. I’m unstoppable. I know so much about weight loss because I lived it and I continue to live it every single day. I want my story to inspire people and I want to help anyone who feels the way I felt when I started. I came to My Fitness Pal to help keep me motivated and help me lose this last 20 LBS. I'm looking forward to finishing my journey with you!