Meet: Roni of Roni’s Weigh and Green Lite Bites

Age: 32

Occupation: Professional Blogger

Where she lives: Maryland

Height: 5’9”

Weight: 143

Pounds Lost: 70

How long it took her to lose the weight: 7 months

How long she has kept it off: 3 years

I am always impressed by people who not only lose a lot of weight, but those who come up with their own recipes along the way. I love to cook, but I have to follow a recipe – I’m no good at creating my own. Roni, on the other hand, features tons of her own yummy, healthy creations at her Green Lite Bites website. She also shares her weight loss journey – and now maintenance – at Roni’s Weigh. Here’s your Weight Loss WooHoo! Roni – Just FatFighterTV’s fun way of celebrating healthy weight! ;)

How Roni gained the weight:
“I was always average – size 12 – but super unhappy in my skin. I was your classic 16-year-old on a diet who didn’t really need to be on a diet. And because of that, I actually started to gain weight. Because I was restricting my calories and binging and then trying not to eat for days, I created my own weight problem in a way.”

“In college, I gained just consistently. My freshman year I gained probably 25-30 pounds. Then it started a cycle where every summer I would lose about 20 pounds and then I would go back to school and gain 25-30. So I may have entered college around a fairly healthy weight of 160 pounds and graduated with my Master’s degree at 210 pounds.”

I did all of your stereotypical crash diets – the Negative Calorie Diet, the Grapefruit Diet, I was taking Xenadrine. I was like your desperate yo-yo dieter who would do anything to lose weight except for what she really needed to do. It was really all about just getting thin.

Turning point:
“I went to Weight Watchers, lost 11 pounds and learned to look at the bigger picture. Then I got pregnant. I gained 70 pounds with my pregnancy. It was almost like a last hurrah. I was eating with no holds barred. I just used pregnancy as an excuse to eat whenever I wanted.”

“Two weeks after my son was born I went back to Weight Watchers and I was like, This is it. The act of actually having a baby and nursing another life was like, My body is so much more than just something that I want to get thin. Pregnancy taught me to honor my body in a way. I just hit the ground running and I was like I’m going to do this. I’m going to learn and I’m going to eat right for him. He really gave me that motivation.”

How she shed the pounds:
“I dropped an average of two pounds a week. I was really on a mission. I had faith in the plan. I followed it and I didn’t try to work it or try to eat all my points in ice cream. I really tried to learn good nutrition while applying their points concept – this whole concept of balance. The weight really literally fell off.”

“I was becoming more active – I would carry my son around in a sling and walk everywhere, I’d park far away, I’d take the stairs, I’d dance around with him. I just kind of learned to do things more actively.”

Weekly workouts:
“Now I’m just crazy! I loathed the gym. I actually have posts where I declare that I hate working out. Now I’m running three or four times a week, I’m training for a half marathon in May, I workout with a trainer, I weight lift. I workout six days a week and I want to. If I don’t go, I’m angry that I couldn’t because my schedule didn’t allow it. I get mad that I didn’t make it to the gym. So I did a complete 360 with the whole working out thing.”

Daily Diet:
“I really became a grazer. It sounds so cliché, but it’s really everything in moderation. Old Roni – when I was in the crash diet decade – it was all or nothing. I always eat breakfast. My mid-day is just a lot of little things here and there – like I’ll grab a yogurt and then an hour later I’ll have some soy nuts, then an hour later I might have half a sandwich with a side of carrot sticks, and then a half hour later I’ll have popcorn. I tend to graze throughout the day and then I have another meal with my family that I cook at night. It’s always a lean protein, a grain and a vegetable.”

Daily challenge:
“Nighttime snacking for me is bad. I tend to stay up too late, so between 11 and midnight is a struggle.”

Tips from Roni:
“Take every choice as a new choice. Every choice that’s presented to you when you’re hungry or you have the munchies or you want to eat something or you’re at a restaurant is an isolated choice. It’s not going to effect tomorrow. That’s such a mentality that people have such a hard time with. Take it day by day and choice by choice. Lose the all or nothing mentality – it’s such a diet buster. I think it sabotages so many people’s efforts.”

A few of Roni’s Favorite healthy recipes:

Kidney Bean and Corn Salsa Salad

Pork Chops with Simple Mushroom Gravy

Southwestern Turkey Burgers

Roni’s Weight Loss WooHoo!:
My WooHoo! Moment was when my friend took me shopping. We went to White House Black Market and we were looking at all their beautiful dresses. If you know anything about me – I’m kind of a tomboy, I don’t dress up much, I wear Birkenstocks every day. But I have that inner girl in me that would always love to play dress-up but was always too ashamed of her body.”

“The [store employees] pulled all these dresses off the racks. I walk out of the dressing room and I’m in this strapless dress which I would have never worn – I just hated having my arms exposed – and I just felt like a movie star being dressed by a dressing team. It was just that moment where I was, Wow, I’m comfortable in my skin and I can try clothes on and kind of be proud. All the workers were like, ‘You look so good in that dress!’ And it was like one of those – Me? Really, me? – kind of moments.”

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Yes, YOU! Really you, Roni! :)

See more weight loss success stories on the Weight Loss WooHoo! Wall of Fame.

If you know of someone who deserves this honor, just let me know – send me an email at sahar [at] fatfightertv [dot] com

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