EDITOR'S NOTE: Check out Katie's TV debut in our eDiets commercial at the end of this post! She's a superstar!
A couple of horrible incidents, including cruel comments by outsiders and a shocking look at a photograph, led Katie B. toward some big realizations about her weight. At 5"2' and 149 pounds, the awareness of her current state of health was, at first, hard to swallow.
But Katie found the strength to begin taking charge of her health by joining eDiets.com.
“I heard about it from a friend. She lost 40 pounds and recommended it to me," Katie said. "She heard about it from her mother who had lost three dress sizes… I wasn’t sure how an Internet weight-loss program would work, but it worked for her mother and it worked for her, so I decided to give it a shot. I needed something."
She took eDiets' Free Diet Profile, and the information she received from was a real eye-opener for Katie. She realized the food she was eating and thought was healthy was far from good for her because of the way she was cooking it.
“First of all, fried vegetables don’t really do a whole bunch of good, and my portion sizes were just out of control,” she said. “I would not limit myself. I would just eat as much as I could or as much that was put in front of
“… I had to cut frying everything. I grew up in the South so it was really second nature for me to dump everything in hot oil. I also had to stop eating gigantic portions. It was just way too much for my body size.”
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the then 33-year-old New Yorker to get accustomed to her new healthy menu. In fact, the variety and convenience of the recipes came as a breath of fresh air.
“The eDiets.com recipes were much faster and tasted fresher. It really saved me time. The shopping lists were extraordinarily convenient. In the past, I’d just kind of roam around the grocery store and I’d pick up things. There was really no rhyme or reason to it. With the shopping list, I went to the grocery store and bought what was written there in front of me and then I left.”
The recipes were quick to prepare and tasty, she said. That kept her from getting bored and helped to lose weight.
For the first few months, she followed her plan and took advantage of the useful tools available to her on eDiets, including the weigh-ins, shopping lists and nutrition tracker.
Still, Katie felt something was missing. The minute she saw her motivation start dwindling she decided to take another significant step -- which turned out to be a major moment of awareness for her.
“I decided to give the support boards a try. I found some challenges and the support boards really hit on my competitive nature. I looked at those and browsed a few and saw that people were in there chatting, suggesting things and helping each other. I decided that this could really push my weight loss to another dimension.”
“So I joined a group and it really solidified my weight-loss success. Once I joined the support board and joined the challenge and had the support of other people all of the time right there 24 hours a day, I started losing about 2 pounds a week consistently until I hit my goal weight. I stayed active on that same board ever since and that’s helped me to maintain my weight loss.”
With help from her fellow eDiets.com pals, she figured out new ways to challenge herself and also got ideas on how to get past cravings.
"One of my weaknesses is ice cream. I love ice cream. So I have a chocolate frozen yogurt for my snack just about every day. That way I get my ice cream, its low-fat and it’s on plan. I’ve learned that I need to do that to keep me satisfied,” she says.
“Also, during the day I allow myself one chocolate Hershey Kiss. It’s only 24 calories and it’s a little bit of chocolate and that’s all I really need, when I am really craving it. I also realized that I tend to get really hungry by mid-morning so I save the piece of fruit from breakfast and I eat it then. So I really split my breakfast in half and that way I don’t start getting really hungry too early in the day.”
Katie also gave her inconsistent fitness schedule a makeover with the help of her eDiets fitness program. It gave her structure, weight training and cardio exercises. She saw results.
"It helped me develop that area of my regime to help me see results. It showed me new exercises that I didn’t know about and new ways to do exercises I was familiar with already. It just gave me a lot of variety and helped make it less boring. It also gave me ideas for different cardio. I didn’t have to get on the treadmill every day. I could jump rope or do other things.”
Today, Katie is more aware of her body than she’s ever been. She looks stunning with her healthy 115-pound physique. Since she started on her health journey she’s encountered countless of eye-opening experiences, and while she’s reached her goal weight, she now welcomes the next moment of realization with open arms. A few slaps in the face turned out to be truly life changing for our inspiring featured success.
“Since I lost the weight everything about my life is better. People perceive me differently than they did when I was overweight. I’ve gotten a lot of job opportunities. I have more friends and the friends that I had beforehand think of me as stronger and more confident, they have a lot of respect for me. They are proud that I was able to lose weight, turn my life around and take control of the situation so efficiently.”
Did Katie’s story inspire you? Get full access to more than 80 support boards where you can meet and be inspired by remarkable people like Katie. Plus, eDiets has over 20 diets to choose from (and you can change the diet you're on as often as you like!) -- click here to join today.
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Labels: diet, motivation, testimonial, weight-loss
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