Beach Body Time: Andrea lost 25 pounds

Let’s show some love to Trinidadian BWLW sista Andrea.  She decided that it was time to get her beach body back and went from 187 pounds to 162 pounds, losing 25 pounds. Read her story and find out how she slimmed down:

“Hi, my name is Andrea and I am from the beautiful island of Trinidad. I have been following your page since Dec 2013 and I am very grateful for the daily encouragement I get from you. You have inspired me to lose weight the healthy way. I wasn’t going to do it any other way but seeing all those weight loss success stories has made me believe that it could be done through healthy eating and exercise. I am now ready to submit my story hoping it will help others struggling with weight loss.

My motivation to lose weight was to get a beach body for vacation and to be able to get clothes to fit me without a problem. I haven’t gotten that perfect beach body but I am close enough. I changed up my eating habits by having more steamed veggies, chicken or fish. I had cereal, oats, green smoothies, fruits and salads. I cut out bread, rice, pasta, sugar and snacks. I drank only water. This helped together with regular exercise but I did not accomplish my goal for the first vacation in October 2013. I was able to lose 11 lbs and some inches from April to October. I went from 187 lbs to 176 lbs. I exercised about 4-5 times a week by walking/jogging and doing steps sometimes twice a day. Progress was slow and sure, but discouraging. I felt like I was exercising in my mind. After vacation, I came back about the same size as I decided that all the food and snacks on a ship wasn’t worth all the hard work I had put in before. By the third day I started making healthy choices. I continued my quest after vacation as another one was coming up in May 2014 and I had more reason to get in shape.  My best friend Candy had been encouraging me to like BWLW page forever but I only did in December. I watched and read and got encouragement. I decided to do the green smoothie challenge in January and boy did that help. I did juicing too. I held up on the exercise as I wanted to see if that 80% what you eat/20% exercise would work.

Indeed it did. By the end of January I lost just about 7 lbs that really made a difference. People started noticing my weight loss and I felt great. It gave me that umph to keep at it. I tried losing more weight in February but I’ve just been able to maintain since then. I exercise just about two to three times a week now. Nothing too strenuous and I continue to eat as healthy as possible. I still have cake and chocolate and pizza whenever I feel like but I choose more healthy options daily. I started at 187 lbs in April, October I reached 176 lbs.  I’m now at 162 lbs, maintaining since February. It took me just about ten long months to see a big difference but I did not push as I could have. My advice is to keep at it, always make healthy choices and ignore the people who don’t respect your choice to be healthy.”