I Fell In Love With THIS Food—And It Helped Me Maintain My 90-Pound Weight Loss

              
By Irina Gonzalez, prevention

Before: 231
After: 140

I was always chubby growing up, but my weight really ballooned in my teens. I ate fast food for lunch every day at school and could easily go through a 12-pack of soda over the weekend. On top of that, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease when I was 16. This is an autoimmune disorder that causes the body to turn against the thyroid, leading to hypothyroidism. For me, it meant easily gaining weight, constantly being tired, and having a very uneven menstrual cycle. Because of my period issues, I began taking synthroid, a medication that regulates your thyroid, right away.

[post_ads]Things didn't get much easier when I started college. Although I remained on medication for my thyroid and started birth control to help regulate my period, my weight continued to increase. I moved to New York City at 18 to go to college, and the world of food became even more exciting. Despite having the typical dorm meal plan, I ate out almost every day. The smell of bagels, pizza, sushi, and even the greasy corner hot dogs was just too much. I loved eating.
        

               

The Change

By the end of my first semester, I'd gained 30 pounds in just four months. When I stepped on the scale back home, I was at 231.6 pounds.

After having what I thought would be the last of my mom's arroz con pollo at Christmas that year, I finally decided to take my health into my own hands. That January, back at school, I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting.

I started following a self-imposed strict eating plan that included starving myself for most of the day and drinking lots of diet Snapple. I would often eat a bagel for a late breakfast, skip lunch, and have an early sushi dinner (always calculating that a salmon or tuna roll were fewer calories than the Philadelphia roll that I really wanted). I lost 90 pounds over the next two years. But stress about graduating college during the Great Recession sparked my urge to stress eat, and I quickly regained 80 pounds.
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That's when I started yo-yo dieting and stopped taking medication for my underactive thyroid, which led to losing and gaining the same 45 pounds over the next couple of years. With my thyroid condition no longer under control, I couldn't seem to get the weight off.

       

               

The Food

Finally, with the encouragement of my mom, I decided to get gastric bypass surgery in January 2009. I lost 100 pounds in the next year, going from 220 pounds to 120. It was easy at first, thanks to my small meals and even smaller stomach. Although my portions were small, deep down I knew that what I was eating wasn't really healthy. There were virtually no fruits or vegetables in my diet, and I continued my college-age habit of counting calories over the nutritional value of food. A late-night taco that made me sick (vomiting is a common side-effect of having too much food after weight-loss surgery) finally brought me to my senses.

Fearing that I would regain all of the weight as I had before, I knew something else had to change.
The main thing missing from my diet was vegetables. Growing up in a Latino household, there was a lot of meat and rice, but not many greens. I knew eating more low-calorie veggies was the key to maintaining my weight loss, but after a lifetime of avoiding vegetables I was scared to try anything new. So I started slowly.

At first, I invited friends over for dinner by asking them to bring a vegetable dish that I hadn't tried yet. Mushrooms, broccoli, and even kale slowly made it into my kitchen. One by one, I discovered new foods, new textures, and new recipes I actually liked.

[post_ads]I began creating meals that were focused around vegetables. Typically, lunch and dinner consisted of a plate that was one-quarter lean protein, one-quarter whole grains, and half vegetables. I started eating lots of fish and turkey and embraced quinoa. I eventually created my favorite whole-grain mix of tricolor quinoa, brown rice, and wild rice.

I experimented with new recipes constantly to find flavors that I enjoyed. I discovered that steamed veggies just weren't my thing, but I haven't met a roasted one that I didn't like.

Eventually, my new cooking success turned me into a flexitarian—someone who eats a primarily vegetarian diet but occasionally has meat or fish.
      

           

The workouts

When I first lost weight after my gastric bypass surgery, I never exercised. Eating smaller meals that consisted mostly of vegetables was enough to lose the last little bit of weight after gastric bypass.

After reaching 120 pounds, my weight slowly crept back up to 160 pounds over the course of four years, despite my healthy diet. So I knew something else had to change.

I felt self-conscious exercising on my own, which made it hard to keep up the habit by myself. So I started using the buddy system. Whenever I wanted to go to the gym, I always had a friend with me. It wasn't until five years after surgery that I realized this was the last piece of the puzzle I needed to keep the weight off and feel better about my body.

At first, I started out slowly by meeting a friend for yoga and brunch on the weekends. Soon enough, I was a member of my local gym and met a neighborhood friend to work out with two to three times a week.

I'd start most workouts by biking and followed that with 30 minutes of weight training using the strength machines. Sometimes I'd take a fun Zumba class or a relaxing yoga session. Now I continue to hit the gym with my boyfriend—and our gym dates are really fun.

Ten months after I started working out, I reached my current happy weight of 140 pounds.
              

                 

Sticking With It

Losing weight using gastric bypass surgery was easy, but keeping it off is not—especially because of my Hashimoto's disease. Though, to my surprise, around the same time I finally started to work out, my doctor revealed that my thyroid was no longer underactive. When I asked him how this was possible, since I was previously told that it was a condition I would have for the rest of my life, he explained that sometimes dramatic lifestyle changes make the Hashimoto's disappear. I just had to continue down this healthy path.

Finding the right kind of support has helped me stick to my new lifestyle, too. Right before we met, my boyfriend started to eat vegetarian and and began working out. Our mutual love of healthy eating and exercise is not only one of the things that first brought us together, but it has also kept us connected. Having a loving and supportive partner at home has helped me continue to keep the weight off.
           

                  

The Reward

As a naturally curvy girl, I was always self-conscious growing up. But as my weight came off and I became more comfortable with my body, I started to fall in love with my shape. I embraced my body for what it was.

Through losing weight and exercising, I learned that not everyone looks the same. I learned that I don't need to be at the bottom of the BMI chart in order to be happy with myself. And, most of all, I learned that being healthy is about more than the number on the scale—it's about everything I do for my body and mind.
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My biggest accomplishment to date was getting boudoir photos made—a dream of mine—despite still not feeling like I had the "perfect" body. I honestly still can't believe that I actually did it, but I'm so glad that I did.
           

                   

My Number-One Tip

Keeping the weight off for the past seven years has been a challenge, but reducing the meat in my diet has been the easiest way to ensure that I am eating healthy. I've had friends who went vegetarian only to end up eating pizza four or five nights a week, but I knew that I didn't want that to be me.

Instead, I eat veggie-based meals five days a week in order to make sure that I am constantly eating healthy and keeping up with my nutritional goals. Falling in love with veggies has truly been crucial to my long-term success.

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