Kriss lost 93 pounds

Honestly, when I tell people how I did it, it seems cliche’.  LOL. It was always something I wanted to change.  There were always reasons why I couldn’t, like not being able to afford gym membership, healthy foods etc. One day I found out that I had hit 300 pounds.  I have always been a big girl but seeing that number, 300, hurt my heart. I realized I had gained 30+ pounds because I ate out more than usual. I was often idle, low key depressed and drinking alot. At that point I decided to do something different.  In July 2012, I just started walking around the UMSL campus some nights a week.  At that time I didn’t really change my diet or anything.  Then i started to use the FREE gym at my job (that has been there since before i was working there of course) that I always made an excuse about not going to.  July 29, 2012, I attended my aunt’s funeral in Arkansas. She had battled sooooo many health issues and it kind of hit me hard. The same weekend I moved into my apartment and from that moment forward i never looked back.

I went to the grocery store and only purchased healthy food, vegetables, chicken, brown rice, whole wheat bread, low-fat and sugar free food, etc. I did not buy any oil or flour so I couldn’t fry food.  I didn’t buy heavy snacks and chips but transitioned to fruits and applesauce and 100 calorie kettlecorn. I began working out 6 days a week…60-70 min a day. I started slow doing all cardio…treadmil and elliptical….as I got comfortable I increased my incline on the treadmil and i increased my resistance on the elliptical to begin to challenge myself.  I even increased my gym time to between 70-90min a day. My motivation came from my family just saying they were proud of me for making the steps I made.  The guy I am dating encouraged me and acted as my personal trainer in a completely different city. Many times I looked in the mirror and I saw the same person. He always told me that you may not see the change yet but the scale knows best.  He was right because even though I felt like I looked the same every week when I weighed in the number got smaller. He was truly my back bone because times when I weighed in and I didnt lose anything after working hard in the gym i would get discouraged but I was reminded that “its not in vain you see how far you’ve come, next week youre going to come back firing.” And i did. Sometimes when I was tired i took breaks.  At times I ate sweets and fried foods too but it was not the norm.  I didn’t resort to rabbit food. I enjoyed everything I ate, looked up recipes tried new things and I made a transformation. Once I truly made it up in my mind, I began to become accustomed to this lifestyle.  I made it a routine and now it’s hard to break or veer from it. Now, I work out 5 days a week, 65-75min a day. I monitor my calorie intake with myfitnesspal and right now.  I consume 1250-1350 calories a day and I burn 1230-1300 calories a day and I drink alot of water, atleast 128 fl oz a day. This is my new life, my new lifestyle. I was told I have been a motivation to many hopefully my story can be featured one day. And if the picture above doesn’t show my face well enough…here is another!  Thank you all for providing these success stories!