Penny Chic

This is not another post about my dresses, but can all agree on how FAB they are?! For more info on the line, click here. Now, many of you have emailed, commented, tweeted, and even bumped into me and asked if I had any weight loss or fitness tips after seeing slimmer pictures of me pop up recently. You’re eyes aren’t deceiving you….over the course of the past 4 months, I’ve been working on trimming down and getting back to my “pre-PC” body and now that I’m there, I’m thrilled to be able to share with you everything that I’ve learned!

Now, first things first… I was happy enough with my body before, but I wanted to be happier and I knew I could definitely be healthier. My goal was to get to my “normal weight”, a weight that would allow me to eat what I want, given the right proportions, without gaining weight.  I was fortunate enough to see a weight loss doctor here in Los Angeles who helped me get to that weight, but the process involved maintaining a restrictive low fat diet (see below) for almost 4 months and then slowly bringing back more quantities of food to see at what point I didn’t gain weight. When my body was able to take on more calories without gaining weight, I was at my normal body weight! Scroll for more…

For the first 3 months, I cut out alcohol completely (minus a couple episodes…don’t tell the doc!), sugar (except for fruit), and gluten except for wasa crackers, which were the only acceptable form of “bread” on the diet. My meals consisted of 4 ounces of veggies and 4 ounces of protein, but the protein had to be as low fat as possible! I was allowed steak, but I’d opt for a filet over a T-bone steak! One of the BIGGEST weight loss tricks was WATER! I always heard people talking up the H20 game but now I REALLY believe it. I drink TEN 8 ounce glasses of water per day. In my humble opinion, it was the water that helped me lose the weight proportionately. Everything melted off where it was supposed to and I didn’t get square or boyish. Anything that was excess, just came off!

The other tip is to keep it light for breakfast. Your stomach is at it’s smallest in the morning and just waking up, so the worst thing you can do is stretch it out with a big American breakfast of bacon, eggs and ham! I went for a big grapefruit, hot tea, and a couple of those Wasa crackers for breakfast and my body got used to it. Do you ever feel like when you eat breakfast you get hungrier throughout the day? Well, my doctor believes that’s true.  Scroll for some wise words on fitness!

Before I started this health kick, I was ALL about the gym. I would go to the gym and kill myself on the treadmill thinking that would somehow fix everything I wanted to change about my body. I know you’ve heard this before, but believe me when I say it’s 80% about what you put into your body. You should ALWAYS be active. But, now that I’m at my healthy weight, I focus more on doing exercise that I enjoy and that will tone me, rather than cardio that will risk damaging my knees and back! Without writing a full weight loss book here, ask me questions and I shall respond!

I hope that all of you feel as fantastic as you are! I’m only sharing because I couldn’t ignore all the responses and just to be clear, I am only sharing my experience. I don’t recommend anyone going on a new weightloss plan without a doctor’s supervision like I had.  I feel awesome where I am now and hope that this can inspire you to do the same