'When you're bigger than the biggest person on The Biggest Loser, it's horrible': How mother-of-two lost 200lb in a year

By Tamara Abraham


Tipping the scales at 456lb Staci Bridwell was ashamed to acknowledge that she weighed more than the largest contestant on the Biggest Loser.

But thanks to the help of celebrity coach Chris Powell, the 30-year-old, from Haslet, Texas, has lost over 200lb in the space of a single year.

The mother-of-two, who appeared on the latest episode of Extreme Makeover, told how she gained weight in her early teens, and has not been able to shift it since.


Transformation: Staci Bridwell, 30, from Haslet, Texas, once weighed 456lb (left), but lost 201lb in a year after appearing on Extreme Makeover (right)


She said: 'As a teenager I gained probably 200 pounds between the time I was 13 to 15. I was shopping at Lane Bryant by the time I was 13 years old.'

She revealed that she had tried every diet imaginable, but her job as a mobile radiology technologist meant that she spent up to ten hours a day in the car, and fast food had become a part of her lifestyle.

'Weight Watchers, Jennie Craig, The Soup Diet … anything,' she said. 'I’ve done them all, and nothing ever worked.'

In addition to a demanding job, Mrs Bridwell was required to care for her two young daughters, as well as support her husband, Rodney, who suffered a stroke three weeks after they met.

Out of control: The mother-of-two's weight soared in her teens, and by 13 she was shopping at Lane Bryant

Pressure: Mrs Bridwell experienced added stress after her husband suffered a stroke, numbing the left side of his body. As a consequence, she became the family's sole breadwinner


But, as the show reveals, she found the impetus to transform her diet and lifestyle, exercising for up to four hours a day, despite her demanding work and home life.

'I didn’t know what to cook. I didn’t know what to buy at the store. I had to change all of that,' she explained.

'I lost the weight over a year, and now it’s just the way I live. I don’t even have to think about it anymore. It’s already second nature. It’s a new lifestyle.

'The hardest part is getting started and making sure you stay with it.'

Success: Mrs Bridwell could fit both herself and her daughter into the legs of her old jeans after six months


Mrs Bridwell enjoyed a successful first six months, dropping to 290lb at the mid-way weigh-in, but her weight reached a plateau during the latter half of Powell's plan.

She told how she had lost her focus while juggling her hectic schedule, and had slipped back into bad habits, eating fast food and not making time to exercise.

But after a disappointing nine-month weigh-in, Mrs Bridwell's motivation was revived, and a session with Mr Powell helped push her to her goal weight of 255lb.

She said of the trainer: 'He’s a very special guy. He is super-inspiring, and
there’s just something about him being around that makes you feel like you can [lose the weight]. I said I’d give it my best shot - and I did - and it worked.'


Helping hand: With the support of celebrity coach Chris Powell, the 30-year-old reached her goal weight


Mr Powell was equally full of praise, crediting her dedication and motivation to her weight-loss goal.

He said: 'She was the largest woman I'd ever worked with and the transformation is incredible.'

As another positive consequence of her new healthy lifestyle, the whole Bridwell family has lost weight - particularly Mr Bridwell, who has lost 100lb since his wife changed their diet.

'My husband lost 100 pounds!' she said. 'It’s so aggravating, he never even works out. All he did was eat the [healthier] food. I work out for hours!'



source:dailymail

How losing weight can change your personality... and it may not be for the better

By Lucy Cavendish


Slimmed down: Lucy lost four stone after dieting but admits keeping the weight off is a constant battle

Three years ago, I was fat. I really was. I was a roly-poly great big lump of lard. I weighed 14st 4lb, far too much for my 5ft 8in frame. I’d go into High Street stores and despair that no clothes fitted me.

I’d stand in front of the mirror and stare in horror at my increasing curves. I didn’t just look fat — I looked as if I was about to give birth. It was so bad that people got up for me on trains.

A woman in a restaurant even came up and congratulated me on my pregnancy. ‘Not long now,’ she said encouragingly. I sat there, burning with shame and close to tears.

That’s what really did it. I decided then and there that I couldn’t bear being fat any more.

Like former Birds Of A Feather star Pauline Quirke, who this week revealed her new svelte figure after losing more than six stone, I decided there was only one thing for it. The excess baggage had to go.

Quirke lost her weight on the LighterLife diet — a drastic regime that requires women to eat no more than 500 calories a day. I lost four stone with WeightWatchers, which offers a less drastic approach. But we both achieved the same result, losing 30 per cent of our total body weight.

I am now — after three years of dieting and being extremely careful about what I eat — a healthy and light 10st 3lb. Every time I climb on the scales, I want to do a dance of pure joy. For the first time in 15 years, I’m slim. In fact, I’m actually lighter than I was in my early 20s.

Yet proud as I am, something crucial and unexpected has changed. It’s not only my body shape that has been transformed, but my personality, too.

It’s as if I have morphed into a different person on the inside, as well as outside.

From being a laid-back type, happy to eat, drink, be merry and have endless parties, I’ve become a rampant control freak.

Instead of cooking or spending time with my husband, I’m either doing stomach crunches in the sitting room or talking about how guilty I feel that I’ve eaten too much. I am, in short, a bore. I have that nervous energy I always used to associate with thin people.

I can’t sit down (if I sit, I might be tempted to eat). I won’t go out for dinner. I won’t let my husband cook for me in case he sneaks fat into things. I feel so sorry for him.

He used to show he loved me by cooking for the family. Now, he just stands there looking like someone’s chopped his arms off. He’s like a forlorn mother bird, desperate to feed me, but not knowing how to.

My lack of eating has probably done untold damage to our relationship. How do you relax with your loved one if she won’t eat or drink?

If we do go out for dinner, I spend so long worrying about what to consume that I’m surprised he doesn’t get up and leave.

I think he preferred me when I was a bit curvier, but he does like the new me. He says ‘gosh you’re tiny’ in an admiring voice, but he definitely misses the intimacy we had when we ate together.

Curvy: Lucy doesn't miss her pre-diet body

Now, he comes in from work and cooks himself a stir-fry and then eats it on his own. He then opens a bottle of wine and pours himself a glass. Meanwhile, I’m on the camomile tea and a slice of cucumber.

It’s a lonely life on both sides!

It’s not helped my relationship with my friends, either. Some of them (the thin ones) are delighted and encouraging. Others (the foodies) are appalled.

When I go round to their houses and refuse pasta smothered in parmesan, chicken cooked in cream, and gateau, I know I am hurting their feelings. It gets worse when I wave away the wine, the brandy and even the glasses of fizz.

‘You used to be such fun!’ they say, giving my husband sympathetic looks. ‘Yes, I was fun, but I was also fat,’ is my retort.

I have also turned into a terrible, judgmental fat-ist. Every time I see someone who is overweight, I want to scream at them: ‘Go on a diet!’

I have friends who drive me so mad with their overeating that I want to tape their mouths shut. Recently, I fell out with a friend when I commented rather acerbically on why she was eating an entire bar of chocolate for her pudding. We haven’t spoken since.

But now I’m thin, I can’t bear fat people’s lack of self-control, their gluttony, their inability to see what harm they are doing to themselves. I’m like one of those TV evangelists.

If I see someone about to munch down one of those huge baguettes filled with brie, I feel like screaming. The sight of a chocolate muffin can bring me out in hives. I feel it’s my duty to explain constantly to everyone how much better I feel now I am thin.

Do I look better? Of course I do! It’s certainly true that people — particularly men — like you more when you are thin. I am sure some of my friends miss the old me, but I don’t.

I don’t want to be bovine, chewing the cud and watching the world go by. I want to be able to move and run and not be weighed down. If my friends don’t like me this way, then tough.

I also get congratulated on how much weight I have lost. People seem so proud of me. ‘You look great,’ is the refrain, ‘and so thin!’

I feel younger, sexier, more agile, more attractive, more powerful — and less paranoid and self-hating.

Transformed: Emmerdale actress Pauline Quirke has lost a huge six stone after years of being overweight with Lighter Life


But, despite it all, there lurks this dark side to being thin, as I am sure Pauline Quirke will discover. There’s a tyranny involved in keeping slim, for in every former-fat person, there is still a fatty waiting to get out again.

I adore cake, biscuits and ice cream, so I find it hard to have anything sweet in the house.

I tend to buy biscuits for the children and the occasional packet of crisps, but I always try to get the flavours I don’t like. If I do, in a moment of weakness, buy a tub of Ben & Jerry’s, I’ll eat the whole lot in one go. Then I’ll feel so sick and full of remorse that I want to kill myself.

I also spend endless hours obsessing about food, dreaming up all the delicious dishes I could eat. To avoid this, I chew on a couple of prawns — no dressing — hoping that my hunger pangs will go away.

Healthy eating: But Lucy admits sticking to low fat foods makes meal times less interesting


Even my dreams have changed. I used to be a good sleeper. Now, I have recurring nightmares in which I’ve eaten so much that I’ve put all the weight back on again.

There are days when all I want to do is eat biscuits. There are days when all I actually do is eat biscuits. But then there’s the terrible guilt afterwards. It’s almost unbearable.

I’ve become the sort of woman who apologises for eating a square of chocolate.

To offset this occasional secret biscuit-eating, I exercise like a fanatic.

I do yoga for an hour or more every day. I walk for an hour-and-a-half. I run and swim and take a boxercise class. If I miss any activity, I beat myself up about it and do extra the next day.

But it’s not all terrible! Honestly. It’s great to feel fitter. It’s wonderful to look better. If I could just stop being quite so paranoid and be more accepting of others and just relax, life would be perfect!

Oh, be forewarned Pauline. Thinness is a psychological battlefield. It really, really is.


source:dailymail

Now even your work-out can be bad for you: The dangers of extreme exercising

By Daisy Dumas


Buff: Jake Gyllenhaal and Heidi Montag are extreme exercisers. Gyllenhaal became addicted while training for Prince of Persia while Montag exercised for up to 14 hours a day before the MGM Grand pool party last month


We all know that exercising is a vital part of staying healthy.

But, even when it comes to fitness, anything in excess can be damaging.

A worrying new trend points to some Americans over-exercising, in what is known as ‘extreme exercising’.

High-profile addicts include Hollywood actor, Jake Gyllenhaal, and reality TV star, Heidi Montag.


Gyllenhaal, who completely transformed his body for the buff title role in Prince of Persia, admitted in March that he became addicted to exercise after working out for the blockbuster movie.

In an interview with Men’s Journal, the ‘cardio monster’ said he even suffered shin splints and has ‘had to teach [him]self to slow down a bit.’

Montag has replaced an apparent addiction to plastic surgery with a hours at the gym. Following drastic facial augmentation in 2009 - in which she underwent 10 dangerous procedures in a single day - Heidi Montag told ABC News in an interview last year that she ‘almost risked everything, all my relationships and myself, for vanity.’

Whether or not driven by the same urge, the fake-breasted celeb reportedly worked out for up to 14 hours a day before the MGM Grand's Wet Republic VIP pool party in Las Vegas last month.


Her dedication to the gym has raised alarm with experts.

Fitness expert, Michael Shaw, owner of New York Personal Training, told MailOnline, 'Like anything in the extreme, extreme exercise is a problem.'

'The most obvious danger is injury, overusing and overloading joints. The body's not meant to withstand that type of training.'

He says that the central nervous system can be affected, causing sleeplessness, while problems can also arise from 'the body not being fuelled right.'

Perhaps most worrying is his observation that extreme exercisers 'tend to have an unrealistic view of what the body is', suffering from body dismorphia.

Extreme exercise can lead to anorexia athletica, when working out becomes compulsive.

Addicted: Extreme exerciser, Brooke Mora, works out for up to 30 hours a week


Shaw recommends that his clients do not work out for more than 45 minutes to an hour at any one time.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends just 2 and a half hours of moderate aerobic activity a week for adults, while the American College of Sports Medicine recommends doing moderately intense cardio 30 minutes a day, five days a week, or vigorously intense cardio 20 minutes a day, three days a week.

Both Gyllenhaal and Montag's work-out routines far exceed the recommendations – and it's not limited to celebrities, either.

In an interview with Good Morning America, extreme exerciser Brooke Mora described how a bad break-up lead to a fitness compulsion.

Forgetting the balanced lifestyle mantra, 'everything in moderation', the 31 year old works out for up to 30 hours a week, fitting training in before and after work and on her lunchbreak.


source:dailymail

Where have all the telly tubbies gone?: TV stars and their dramatic weight loss

By Daily Mail Reporter


As Pauline Quirke becomes the latest TV star to show off her dramatic weight loss, we look at other famous television faces who have slimmed right down...

Nadia Sawalha, 47, lost 3½ stone, going from a size 18 to a size 10, by working out with a personal trainer three times a week and eating healthier meals

Pauline Quirke, 51, went from 19½ stone to 13 stone on the 500-calories-a-day Lighter Life diet after doctors told her she was in danger of needing a hip replacement

Dawn French, 53, has shed three stone, dropping from a size 20 to a size 16. Denies rumours of gastric band and says it's down to walking plus no chocolate or chips

Fern Britton, 53, lost five stone and dropped from a size 22 to a size 12. Claimed it was down to diet and exercise before admitting to having a gastric band

Claire Nasir, 41, went from 10st 4lb last year to eight stone and a size 6, thanks to a five-meals-a-day diet and exercise sessions that burn up to 1,000 calories

Anne Diamond, 56, ballooned to 15st 10lb after having five sons. Tried diet and exercise, but lost four stone only after having a gastric band fitted five years ago

Lorraine Kelly, 51, slimmed from a curvy 14 to a slim 12 after running the London Marathon last year. Keeps the weight off by eating bananas instead of sweets

Vanessa Feltz, 49, lost weight after her marriage break-up in 1999, but regained it all. A size 24 before gastric band surgery last year, she's now a size 16


source:dailymail