Ebony lost 131 pounds

Weight Loss Success Story of the Day: Ebony lost 131 pounds. She went from a size 28 to a size 8 with clean eating, exercise, strength training and a great support system.  Here is what she shared with us about her journey.

My weight loss journey started after a visit I had with my doctor. It was a physical examination. and all my vitals were good. However, I am 5’11” in height and was weighing in at about 320 pounds. Not good. I was 28 years old at the time, three months short of my 29 birthday. I was embarrassed. I had gained all the weight back that I had loss with a trainer. I went to Atlanta to visit my sister and lost all forms of discipline that I had gained with Maia (my trainer). My doctor said,”Ebony, you really need to loose the weight. You lost 30 lbs the last time I saw you. What happened?” I explained that I fell in love with food again. There was the Golden Corral, The Waffle House…omg.  My doctor said, “You have so much life in you. You’re young. You have a son and you have a career as a preschool teacher. You’re ankles are swollen and you’re headed in the direction of being unhealthy…diabetes, hypertension, heart attack…and now you mention your lack of breathing when you go to sleep. It might be sleep apnea. Honey, the list can go on. I think you need to go to these overeaters anonymous classes that we have here.”

Three months after I was back in the gym I noticed that I was keeping a consistent schedule but not losing a lot weight. I was still eating everything that I knew would not help me. On June 1, 2013, I joined Weight Watchers to help me establish proper eating habits and portion control. My first day on the point system was a learning experience. I ate a pancake and that, sorry to share, was all the points for the whole day. I learned a very valuable lesson and so that night I learned to careful plan what I would eat and how many points I would loose and the weight was dropping. I started to combine this with my workout schedule and it was on. I was now going to the gym Monday through Saturdays. As the weight was slowly dropping off I noticed that my confidence grew. I started to take a couple of classes. My favorites were latin heat and zumba.

More weight started to shed and I noticed that I was down a huge number of pounds than my initial date. I started to increase my time at the gym and started introducing myself to new people. I had met one friend who introduced me to the weights and the importance of lifting weights. I started to see that when you incorporate weights, nutrition and exercise you will begin to see major improvements on your weight loss journey.

By the next year, I was happy to announce my amazing loss of 100 lbs. I saw my doctor. By then I was another year old and I was 217 pounds. She was very impressed. I told her that I had listen and I did what I had to do because she hurt my feelings in such a way that it left an imprint in my heart. You would think she would be pleased. I wanted to get to 200 but I didn’t want that pressure on myself. She was happy but she still believed I could do more.

I decided to map out another plan. I met another group of people and they showed me so very valuable exercises that help me to shed those 17 lbs to get to 200. My milestone came when I had a plateau. My eating habbits had improved to where I was able to not count points anymore. I had cut back on sweets, fried foods and breads, but I still needed help. I wanted to finish what I started and my goal was to get to 175 pounds before my next doctors visit. I joined a challlege that I saw on Instagram. It was called Training for My Life by the infamous Donesha Bolden @training4mylife. With her help I not only learned how to form better nutritional methods for clean eating, but I learned how to incorporate new exercises that would not only challenge but strengthen my journey.

Here I stand today, two years later. I’m a testament of hard work, sacrifice and dedication, I can’t wait to see the look of amazement on my doctors face. Boom! I did it!  From 301.4 pounds  to 170 pounds. From size 28 to a skating figure size 8. My joy is always to be a helper. If I can help anyone who is in a journey or about to start one I would simply say, “Be encouraged! Your best is yet to come. Be strong be patient and fight for you life. You have nothing to lose and more to gain. Push pass comfort because your little by little results will come a lot more sooner than you think if you don’t give up and you don’t loose heart. Now rearrange that mental furniture to I Can!!!!!”
Instagram: @ejdeuce