00:00And at my heaviest, I weighed 230 pounds.
00:03I had been overweight my whole life.
00:04I'd gotten to about my early 20s
00:06when it really started piling on.
00:08I was going to a theme park with my friends,
00:10and one of the workers basically told me
00:13I wasn't able to go on the park ride because of my size.
00:16That just catapulted into this big breaking point.
00:19It made me really step into action mode.
00:22Since the beginning of my fitness journey,
00:24I have lost 90 pounds.
00:30I had been overweight my whole life.
00:32My family loves food.
00:34We're of Jamaican descent,
00:35so we would eat and we would eat well.
00:37The weight just piled on years over years, steadily,
00:40until I had gotten to about my early 20s
00:42when it really started piling on.
00:44I personally just wasn't physically active,
00:47so running to the bus to try to get to work on time
00:50or running to my next class at school,
00:52everything was just really difficult.
00:55And I would say when I hit my breaking point,
00:56it was a few situations that kind of happened back to back.
01:00I was going on a trip,
01:02and it was my first international trip to Japan.
01:05I remember sitting in a seat,
01:06feeling completely uncomfortable, piling over my seat,
01:09and the air hostess asking me
01:11if I wanted to purchase the seat next to me.
01:13And this was very embarrassing
01:15because I was with all my friends,
01:16and again, I was going to a theme park with my friends,
01:19and one of the workers basically told me
01:22I wasn't able to go on the park ride because of my size.
01:25That's when I got to about 230 pounds,
01:27and that's when there was serious concern.
01:30I started to realize, okay, I've got to take control of this.
01:33I had tried every diet under the sun.
01:35I had lost 10 pounds, gained 15 pounds, lost 20 pounds.
01:38I had tried everything prior, but it was time for change.
01:41It made me really step into action mode.
01:43At my heaviest, I weighed 230 pounds.
01:46I currently weigh about 130, 140 pounds.
01:53I actually lost 90 pounds in nine months,
01:55and I've been able to keep it off for 15 years.
02:00I like to train about four days a week,
02:02and that's in the gym or in my living room,
02:04depending on what time of the year it is
02:06and what's going on in life.
02:07A typical workout for me is strength training.
02:09I love feeling empowered and strong.
02:12I love picking up weights,
02:13and I love just seeing what my body is able to do.
02:16I had lost the weight, and a lot of my friends and family
02:18were saying, how did you do it? How did you do it?
02:20So I just started giving all of this free advice,
02:22and then eventually, that advice turned into paid advice.
02:26Got certified, and I started helping people
02:28I believe in just having a balanced diet
02:31filled with whole foods, fruits, vegetables,
02:34but also having fun.
02:35I really made sure that I wasn't ever depriving myself,
02:38because that's really the reason why a lot of diets fail,
02:40is because of deprivation.
02:42I have quit my corporate job to really help
02:44empower women on their weight loss journey.
02:46So I spend all my days, every day,
02:49helping thousands of women really take control
02:51of their health and wellness.
02:53I think a lot of people don't realize
02:54that they're not doing it for themselves.
02:57I think a lot of the industry right now
02:59is telling you that you need to go on the extreme diets,
03:01take the pills, do the detoxes,
03:04when really our business's ethos is,
03:06this is how you can do it, the holistic and sustainable way.
03:11Over the last kind of five years,
03:13I've been focusing so much on helping other women
03:15that I hadn't really focused on my personal life,
03:17until I met Eddie in Brazil at Carnival of all places.
03:20We met while dancing in the streets of Rio de Janeiro.
03:24Our eyes locked, and ever since then,
03:25we had been really focused on developing our relationship,
03:29and I've since moved to Germany.
03:31I think in the beginning,
03:32I had a typical German diet with beer and bread,
03:36but she taught me the lesson in healthy eating
03:40and healthy living, and I'm very grateful for that.
03:43So being overweight my whole life,
03:44I didn't date much until I lost the weight.
03:48Nobody really teaches you how to live life post weight loss.
03:51You're in a whole new body,
03:52you're getting a lot of new attention,
03:54and it's really hard for you to understand
03:56how to navigate this attention, these new feelings.
04:00Now that I've been on a journey
04:01to kind of self-love, self-discovery,
04:03my relationship is much more advanced,
04:06much more deep, much more evolved
04:08than the relationships I had in the past
04:10when I had just lost the weight or when I was overweight.
04:13Now when I look in the mirror,
04:15I see a woman who has beaten the odds,
04:18so a lot of people lose a lot of weight,
04:21but it's really hard to maintain and sustain that weight loss.
04:25I've since traveled the world,
04:26I've built a business that's helping thousands of women,
04:28I've been to over 40 countries.
04:30On my first international trip,
04:31I couldn't even fit in the seat.
04:33I am now traveling the world monthly, and it feels amazing.
04:38I think it's the persistence which is really key
04:41in the whole thing when you want to lose weight,
04:44and she showed me that persistence
04:46is basically the winning element to losing weight.
04:50I'm very proud of myself and my achievements.
04:53Not only what I was able to do with my physical body,
04:55but what I've been able to help women do.
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