Losing weight can be hard. I can't tell you how many diets I've tried over the years. But one woman seemed to have it figured out. She lost 75 pounds and managed to keep it off.
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Alaias Bertrand has also managed to keep the weight off for the past six years as well. "I was trying to do quick fixes, bad diets, just like anything that I thought would work," Bertrand told Business Insider. "It felt so difficult. It didn't feel like I was getting anywhere."
So how did she do it? Well, there's no easy cheats. But she did do it in two steps and it involved lifestyle changes. The woman rejected quick fad diets and focused on making the necessary life changes that she needed. That started with examining her daily habits. "I started taking analysis of where I was, where my family was, where my friends were at, and started to calculate, is this how I want to live?" she said.
She also stopped keeping track of and counting calories. "Tracking what I ate almost caused me to go down such a negative spiral of just overthinking and analyzing my entire life and food that it took the fun away from life," she said.
Woman Loses 75 Pounds
She also decided to join a sprint club. Bertrand started running two to three times a week to burn calories. It gave her a goal to work towards, but she also enjoyed it.
"I felt so proud of myself for finding something that I actually liked doing that was starting to work," she said. "I recall the doctor asking me what I did. It was such a drastically different reaction."
Likewise, she also changed up her eating habits. She started eating smaller portions off of a plate and also focused on a Mediterranean-style diet.
"Some days they would have Greek food, or they would have Mediterranean food, or they would do burgers, but again, their portion size would be really reasonable," she said. "That was something that was very doable for me. It was very actionable because all I have to do is grab a smaller plate."
"Over time, my adjustments became less about needing to look a certain way and more so about wanting to feel a certain way. I want to feel good in my body. I want to feel confident," she said. "I think what made the journey so successful is I stopped caring about what I looked like. What I looked like became a by-product of me falling in love with the journey."
