BE AN INSPIRATION
If you’ve made positive changes in your diet and/or fitness routine and are happy with the results, please share your success with us. Include your email address, a daytime phone number and before and after photos (by mail or JPEG). Write: Success Stories, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 223 Perimeter Center Parkway, Atlanta, GA, 30346-1301; or email Michelle C. Brooks, ajcsuccessstories@gmail.com.
Success Story
Rosalind Canty, 51. From 186 pounds to 155 pounds
Former weight: 186 pounds
Current weight: 155 pounds
Pounds lost: 31 pounds
Height: 5 feet, 7 inches
Age: 51 years
How long she's kept it off: She started in May 2014 and has kept it off for a year and a half.
Personal life: "I'm self-employed; I have my own cleaning service," said Canty, who has been married for 11 years. She and her husband have five children. She lives in Jonesboro.
Turning point: "The reason I started my weight loss was one of my friends passed away. I was very depressed. I knew I needed to get my life right. I used to have a lot of stomach problems. I went to doctors for a whole two years. I went to all kinds of doctors. … When I went to Casi and started eating right, it stopped." She went to Casi's Straight Millitary Style Bootcamp (casisbootcamp.com). "My husband motivated me to get up everyday to go to the class. He was really right there for me all the way."
Diet plan: "I am still sticking to her plan. … I stay away from sugar and eat nothing sweet unless it's a special occasion." Breakfast is oatmeal or grits. Around 10 a.m. she has a baked sweet potato followed by a salad for lunch. Dinner is baked chicken or fish and a vegetable. "I used to have pains in my stomach like contractions. My husband used to rush me to the emergency room, and they couldn't find anything wrong, I guess it was the way I was eating."
Exercise routine: "I try to go running Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at the man-made beach down here. I run 3 miles. Casi's boot camp, I go the whole week, Monday to Friday, at 5:30 a.m."
Biggest challenge: "Getting up … at 5 o'clock in the morning is my challenge. I don't want to go back to the bad eating. I did some of that over the holidays and I got so sick. [I know] I don't want to go back to that."
How life has changed: When she started boot camp, there was running: "I thought, I cannot do this, this is not for me — now I love to run," she said. "I can wear clothes that I never could wear; when I walk, my thighs don't rub together. I went back to the doctor for a checkup and even the nurse noticed I lost weight; they were so happy for me." Her advice is do it for the right reasons: "You have to do it for yourself. You can't do it because your friend did it — it's got to be in you to do it."
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