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Jameelah lost 158 pounds

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Update 2017: Shout out to Jameelah. She shared her story with us in 2015 and she has kept the pounds off. Maintenance is the hard part.

Stripes 😎

A post shared by Twitter: @SameOleMeelah (@foreverxxi_1908) on

Weight Loss Transformation of the Day: Jameelah lost 158 pounds. At 21 years old, this Alpha Kappa Alpha soror faced hypertension and weighed 333 pounds. Seeing an inspirational weight loss story gave her the wakeup call she needed. Now, she is sharing her story to inspire others. Here is what she shared with us about her journey…

Jameelah before and after

My name is Jameelah Meredith. In the picture on the left, I weighed 333 pounds. Now, I weigh 175 pounds. I am 5’7″ tall. I was motivated by a video of a man who was handicapped and overweight. He changed his life, lost weight and was able to walk on his own again. Seeing that video motivated me, because if he could change his life and become mobile again, I could do the same thing.

I stopped eating fast food, red meat and pork. I added more fruits and veggies into my diet, and completely cut out fried food. When I started my journey, I was working out 5 times a week! I was in the gym doing 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of lifting. Some days, I run outside for 1-3 miles daily. I also started doing outside activities, like running, climbing mountains and swimming. Currently, I work out 4-5 days a week.

I started my journey in 2013 and have lost over 150 pounds just by being more active and not being a couch potato. I was just 21 years old when I started and I knew that it would be best if I started to change at a young age. I feel much better and I’m so much healthier. Before this transformation, I had prehypertension. Now, I feel normal and I’m completely healthy. I feel so much better. I look better and I’m so happy that I decided to make a change.

My advice for someone looking to lose weight is just change your diet and become more active. Add veggies, fruits and lean meat to your diet. I cut out red meat and only ate chicken and turkey (I’m allergic to fish and seafood but those are good options as well.) I drank water only! If I wanted something other than water, I made a real fruit smoothie. I challenged myself some months with different diets also. Some months, I went without any meat at all or I cut out bread. I got to know my body and discovered what worked for me and what didn’t work for me. I did it all by myself without a trainer or anything. You just have to believe in yourself and just do it!

Instagram: @foreverxxi_1908

Update: Rhonda has dropped 45 pounds

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Update: My Sigma Gamma Rho soror Rhonda has dropped 45 pounds.  That’s 25 more pounds since we featured her story back in December 2013.  I asked her to share with us about how she has transformed her body.  She has shared in depth about what step she’s taken to lose body fat, tone and gain muscle.  Her weight loss transformation is amazing and she looks great. Read her update and check her our on Instagram: @massrhoyalty22

Rhonda before and after

Since my last update, I am now down a total of 45 lbs. The most noticeable change over this last year is the muscle I have put on and the body fat I have lost. I am so excited to share with you how I accomplished it!

I Prayed

You have to stay connected to your source, if you don’t, distractions and excuses will creep in and dominate your journey, and ain’t nobody got time for that mess!! Tell God the desires of your heart and He will give them to you.

I visualized how I wanted my body to look

Visualizing how you want your body to look is so very important. Save a picture from Instagram in your phone or cut out a picture from a magazine and place it on your vision board. No matter how you do it, keep the vision of your new body alive and in the forefront of your mind.

I Believed in myself

This is a tough one. You have to believe in your ability to succeed. Speak positivity over yourself every day, no matter what you are going through. Thoughts become things, so think great thoughts about yourself.

I lost the excuses

There will ALWAYS be a reason not to accomplish your goals…there is NO EXCUSE good enough to excuse away your happiness. Buckle down, dedicate yourself, and go get the body you want! YOU HAVE TO PUT IN THE WORK YOURSELF! No one can do the work for you.

I was consistent… I trusted the process…I kept going

If I can say one thing about being on my overall fitness journey that has totally changed my approach to succeeding it’s this…you have to trust the process. If you don’t see the results you want to, trust the process, if you are seeing results, but not like you imagined, trust the process…so what is the process? The process is the actual biological and physical change that your mind and body is forced to go through with body fat reduction and muscle sculpting. Your biology has to catch up to what your mind sees and what your body does, so be patient, don’t give up on it, be consistent and trust the process!

I CHANGED HOW I THOUGHT ABOUT FOOD

I looked as food as fuel to charge my training instead of comfort. Here are the guidelines I came up with and use.

  1. Eat according to your fitness goals: Employ good calorie deficit habits in direct correlation to the weight you want to lose.
  1. EAT CLEAN, EAT CLEAN, EAT CLEAN: If it didn’t have a mother or if it didn’t come from the ground… don’t eat it more than once a week.
  1. Eat a vegetable with every meal: Tomatoes, avocado and mushrooms are awesome at breakfast
  1. Drink water with every meal: Water will be your servant if you allow it. It will be a magic potion for your muscles and flush fat like nothing else you consume.
  1. Never, ever overeat: Overeating is the #1 cause of obesity. Stick to your portion sizes like you stick to a budget.
  1. Protein is your ally: Whether its whey, veggie, soy, egg or meat protein find one that works for you and your lifestyle and make sure you get a sufficient amount of it each day. It cuts cravings and keeps you from unwarranted snacking.
  1. Enjoy your food: Don’t allow food decisions to stress you out. You can eat healthy and still enjoy your food, find great recipes that you enjoy making and eating.
  1. Eat foods that will encourage BM’s: Yes, it’s a sensitive topic, but moving your bowels is a VERY important part of fitness. Most people who are overweight carry at least 5 lbs of bowel waste. So if you aren’t moving your bowels every day, you aren’t eating the right foods, or losing weight.
  1. Eat your heaviest meal early in the day and your lightest meal at night: Having a big breakfast/lunch and a light dinner will jumpstart your metabolism
  2. Meal Plan/Prep: Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Prepping your meals for the week on Sundays will take the guess work out of what you will eat if you have a busy lifestyle. It prevents eating off of your plan and keeps you honest when hunger strikes.

Anita lost 55 pounds with weight loss surgery

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Weight Loss Story of the Day: Anita lost 55 pounds with weight loss surgery and healthy changes to her lifestyle.  She decided that it was time to make a change for the good of her health.  Read more about her journey:

Anita weight loss surgery

“My starting weight was 254 pounds and I finally said enough is enough. In March of this year, it hit me that I was obese and going down the road to many health problems. I said enough is enough. I joined a gym and began working out. That’s how I lost my first 25 pounds. At the advice of my doctor I had Gastric Sleeve bariatric surgery recently on April 28 2014. I have since lost another 30 pounds for a total of 55 pounds. I still have 30 more to go but love my journey. I still work out doing cardio and walking 2 to 3 miles a day.

With the surgery, I had no choice but change. My meals consist of baked chicken or fish and veggies. I no longer eat anything with sugar, no soda, (only water and Crystal light), very few carbs and a lot of fruits and veggies. I also must have meals with lots of protein and drink protein shakes daily. For a snack, I have sugar free popsicles jello or fruit. If I go to the park, I walk 3 miles, if I go to the gym I walk 2.5 miles and cycle a mile after that.  If I workout at home, I dance to hustle music for about an hour. My advice would be to just do it. Every little victory counts. Start out with a walk to the corner and gradually increase.  Walk in place during commercial breaks while watching TV. As far as eating is concerned start incorporating more home cook meals with baked, grilled or broiled neat instead of fried. Eat lots of fresh green veggies. I’m not saying just go cold turkey but make gradual changes and watch the weight start to come off.

Don’t get me wrong I miss my junk food but I feel so much better and love the way I look. It is an awesome feeling to put on a pair of jeans that you haven’t worn in years because the were too small. Those feelings out weigh my cravings.”

How to Break Through a Weight Loss Plateau

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weight loss plateauIt happens to everyone. You are going strong with your diet and exercise program and seeing results for the first few months, and then all the progress stops. Welcome to the classic weight loss plateau. It is normal to lose more weight in the first few months per week as you change your lifestyle habits and then to settle into a steady pound a week loss (or for some even less).  Here is some info on how to break through that weight loss plateau.

Accept your body shape/family genetics

Make sure your expectations match your reality. If you come from a long line of short people, you can’t make yourself taller. If your family genetics shows you that you are going to be larger than a size zero, accept that. Don’t get caught in the prison of false expectations. Remind yourself that beauty is based in health, not in a Photoshopped image that is touted as what you should look like. That is only done to sell you a product. Real beauty is found in those who are confident, healthy, strong and engaged in life around them. The rest is all just trends and fads.

The block could be mental

You could have a mental block about your weight loss too. One of the problems that everyone faces is that we aren’t able to see our own bodies. Our brains take all sorts of shortcuts to fill in what we should be seeing with what we expect to see, based on experience, in order to make fast judgments. You have to be careful that what you may be calling a weight loss plateau is really that and not a change in weight distribution between muscle and fat that you can’t recognize in the mirror.  Things like bloating, medicine and the natural ups and downs of body weight that happen on a daily basis can affect how you see yourself. A good way to get around this is to base your judgment of your shape on measurements, not weight. A tape measure doesn’t lie and can provide evidence that you are still slimming down when the mirror and scale are telling you it’s stopped.

Make sure you are eating enough, especially if you exercise

This may sound like the opposite of what you would expect to cause problems, but if you aren’t eating enough and you are exercising more, you won’t lose weight. If you force your body into a starvation mode where a great deal more energy is being expended than fuel is being taken in, it will start to cling to whatever fat stores it has and be miserly about burning them. This is fundamental info about how your metabolism works. Also, you can run into a problem trying to break through that weight loss plateau if you aren’t eating enough and your body has adjusted to the stress level of your exercise routine.

Monitor your overall calorie intake closer

Break out your food journal or mobile food tracking app and take a closer look at what you are eating and how much you are eating. Chances are there is something in your diet that is holding you back. Often, what was ok when you started losing weight to eat becomes the reason you stop losing weight as your body mass adjusts. Look for foods that are heavier in starches, low in fiber or high in sugar – they are the usual culprits.  High consumption of fats can also be an issue.

Change up your workouts

The traditional workout programs are good but they have one consistent flaw, they create a consistent pattern of stress on the body that the body adapts to. Your body is built for stress, under the physical stress of exercise you will lose weight – until the body adapts and you stop losing. This is done to protect you from starvation. To break through that weight loss plateau you need to change up your workouts beyond two days for legs, two days for upper body and a day of cardio. What happens to most people is they change the workout but they don’t change the challenge. Don’t just increase the reps of what you do or the time you do cardio, you have to change the way the whole body is used to increase the challenge and start losing weight again. The bonus is that switching up your routine keeps it interesting to you so you stay committed.  Workout DVDs are great for this because you can pick a lot of different workouts and levels of challenge.

Tanieka lost 80 pounds

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smtanieka

Weight Loss Success Story of the Day: Tanieka lost 80 pounds going from a size 24 to a size 8.  Here is what she shared about her weight loss journey:

“I started my weight loss journey a year ago and have lost 80 pounds. I started realizing that my weight was just going to keep going up if I don’t do something soon about it. I was a single mom with three kids slowly going down hill and takin care of everybody else but myself. I logged on to a weight loss site called My fitness pal and figured I would give it a try. I met friends along the way who gave me wonderful advice.

I workout 5 days a week, and eat around 1500 to 1600 calories a day. A lot of my meals consist of chicken, fish, turkey and veggie meats, along with lots of fruits and vegetables.  I don’t eat a lot of carbs, pasta or breads. I do have a cheat day during the week which keeps my cravings at ease when I want something not so healthy to eat. Weight loss is not a race, is a Journey.  Slow and steady will get you there, it will give you the willpower to keep at it.

P.S..This photo was a year ago at my brothers wedding. I was a size 24 and now I am a size 8.  The dress looks like a trash bag on me now..LOL!!!”

Tanieka weight loss