By Mark McConville
MEET the mum-of-one who lost more than four stone so she could have the strength and energy to juggle motherhood with her career.
English teacher Monique Rose (25) from the Bronx, New York, weighed 14st and wore UK dress size 14-16 before losing 4st 4lbs.
She now weighs a svelte 9st 9lbs and wears a UK dress size 4 after recognising her need to lose weight to allow her to be the best parent she could be while also attending to her Masters’ programme, career and social life.
Monique explained what led her down this path and how she set about shifting the weight once her son was born.
“I got on social media and admired fitness moguls,” she said.
“I had dreams of confidently wearing any clothing I wanted so I confronted the reality of my health condition through the scales and a camera by documenting my body in an album in my phone called ‘weight loss journey.’
“I juggled a busy and strenuous life as a graduate student, teacher, mother, and writer, feeling disappointed, depressed, and discouraged. I lost my confidence and my self-esteem gradually diminished.
“I turned down girls’ nights and date nights. If I did go out, I sat and watched other woman happily enjoy life because I was feeding myself negative thoughts like ‘I do not fit in.’
“I refused to continue being obese for the rest of my twenties. The moments when I mustered up strength and motive to make healthier changes, I used workout DVDs like p90x and temporarily cut out my favourite foods like oxtails, French fries, cheese cake and eating out.
“However, I constantly slacked off and reverted back to my old habits. I only lost ten pounds by the time my son turned seven months old.”
Not happy with her results Monique researched nutrition and fitness which led her to make core lifestyle changes to fuel her passion, determination and motivation.
“The first step was getting past my five step challenge’s ‘rehab stage’,” she recalled.
“That’s the stage where I wrote a list of my unhealthy habits, pasted it on the wall, and fought temptations of doing them again.
“Then I enrolled in the gym at Planet Fitness, but went once or twice a week. Eventually I started to engage in at-home exercises. I replaced juice with water and regulated my portions.
“I had to transform my mentality in order for my body to change. Mental strength gave me physical strength to persevere.”
Monique felt herself become mentally stronger and started to maintain what she calls ‘Mo’s Five Step Challenge’.
It entails drinking four and a half litres of water a day, consuming her last meal at 7pm, eliminating simple carbs from meals, replacing a meal with a natural vegetable or fruit juice and engaging in home workouts for 30 minutes a day.
“I was astonished that I lost five pounds a week,” said Monique.
“My energy levels and confidence increased as my clothes size decreased. It wasn’t easy so I found creative ways to stay motivated and started to share them on my site’s blog.
“Some things I did were buy smaller sized clothing and set a date for when I would fit into them, wrote down my inconsistencies and unhealthy habits, created social media pages dedicated to health and fitness and followed fitness experts on social media.
“My passion now is to help others achieve this goal of transforming their body by adjusting to a healthy lifestyle, without products, a gym, or medication.”
For more information see https://www.instagram.com/mofit___/
