I originally wrote this piece for MindBodyGreen.com and when it received such an enthusiastic response, I decided that I also wanted to share it with you here. Read my weight loss story below and how I achieved my goal through clean eating. And if you're ready, take The Healthy You Challenge with me! Starting January 1st, I will be hosting a New Year’s Healthy You Challenge and will personally guide you step-by-step through the program that changed my life and my weight! Read my story…
I was fat, exhausted and desperate to lose weight. Clean eating changed my life and my weight!
I know being overweight is unhealthy but when I was in my 20’s and 40 pounds overweight my health wasn’t my main concern. I was more concerned with fitting into the clothes in the closet than I was about the health consequences of being overweight. My minuscule clothes budget couldn’t keep up with my ever-expanding waistline. My closet became a war between my “fat” clothes and my “skinny” clothes and unfortunately my fat clothes were winning the battle.
I went from being an extremely fit teenager to being a somewhat fit college student to a 40-pound overweight working-woman in my 20’s.
I still remember turning down company get-togethers and blind dates because I was so uncomfortable with my weight. I was fat, tired and unhappy. I was desperate to lose weight and I tried just about every diet available.
As a true lover of food, none of the fad diets satisfied my craving for good food. On each weight loss attempt, I would lose a few pounds only to give up and gain all the weight back and then some.
It wasn’t until I realized that the media-hyped fad diets weren’t a viable solution for me that I started to work on a solution. After years of failed attempts to lose weight, I finally found a way to drop all 40 pounds and keep it off for good—I’ve been at or near my goal weight for nearly 20 years!
The solution wasn’t about depriving myself of good food or starving myself in order to see the number on the scale drop. The solution was simple—the solution was clean eating.
Eliminating excess sugar, processed foods and artificial sweeteners, chemicals and preservatives was just the start. When I finally found a way of eating that had me dropping the pounds quickly and allowed me to eat good food (like Fish Taco’s with Mango and Avocado Salsa, Chicken Skewers with Chile-Lime Sauce, Kale and Maple Roasted Sweet Potato Salad, Wild Rice and Spinach Soup, Three Bean Chili and even wheat-, gluten- and dairy-free triple chocolate brownies) I knew I found my weight loss silver bullet.
I know what it feels like to be overweight and unhappy but I also know what if feels like to finally fit into a smaller size pair of pants and smile when you step on the scale. I wish everyone who is struggling with their weight and feeling hopeless, like I felt, could know what it feels like to finally lose all the excess weight.
That’s why I wrote The Healthy You Diet: The 14-Day Plan for Weight Loss with 100 Delicious Recipes for Clean Eating. I know what it’s like to lie in bed and cry—thinking you’ll never lose weight. I know what it’s like to turn down invitations because you have no clothes that fit. But I also know how great it feels when the weight starts melting off.
Nearly twelve thousand people have already found success with my 14-Day Healthy You Challenge—the jump-start to clean eating.
If you’ve just about given up on ever reaching your goal weight, if your tired of depriving yourself of good food and if you’re tired of seeing the number on the scale creep up rather than down, clean eating may be just what you need to jump start your weight loss and once and for all reach your goal weight.
Now that I’m in my 40’s, I believe the most important benefit of being a healthy weight and eating a clean diet is countering disease and keeping your body working well/healthy. But I can’t lie; I also love the feeling of fitting into my skinny jeans!
Whether you join me for The Healthy You Challenge or embark on another clean eating program, I hope you’ll give clean eating a try. You have nothing to lose but your excess weight!
To your health!
Dawna