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As Debbie Ramos approached her 50th birthday in 2018, she was faced with some hard truths. “My doctor asked me if I wanted to have a heart attack or a stroke, because that’s where I was headed. My blood pressure was high, my cholesterol was high and my A1C was off the charts,” she told TODAY.com.

She weighed 286 pounds and she knew she had to change. Around the same time, her father died and she would have to improve her health to care for her mother.

She started going to the gym and saw improvements in her fitness, but after seeing photos of herself on a family cruise, she realized she wasn’t making much progress.

“When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t look huge. You see something that is not always reality. But when I saw the photos from the cruise, I was shocked. I realized I wasn’t going to be there for my mother,” she says.

Around the same time, she received an email from her health insurance plan, California Blue Shield. He explained that if she answered certain questions, their Bienvolution The platform would help him find ways to lose weight and improve his health. “I thought I had nothing to lose,” she says.

They paired her with Weight Watchers and paid him for a year and gave him a FitBit tracker and a scale. During the first three weeks, she lost 10 kilos. “I started losing weight and thought, ‘I can do this,’” she says.

Over time, she lost 116 pounds: “I tell people I lost weight one ounce at a time. It’s not fast, but it’s not supposed to be. I haven’t gained this much weight in a year. It took 25 years for this to happen. Two or three books a year, that’s a lot,” she says. Today, her life is centered around health and fitness. “Eight years ago, my husband and I would wake up and watch football on Saturdays. We wouldn’t really start until noon. Now I go out at 6:30 a.m. for my WeightWatchers meeting. I’m home before 8 a.m. and we play frisbee golf, ride bikes, take a walk or do something,” she said.

Her weight loss led to unprecedented victories for her physical and mental health

“There has been such a change in the way I think and the way I live my life now. I feel like if I have a challenge, I can take it on, because look what I’ve done. I feel so strong, confident and powerful,” says Ramos.

She weighs herself every day, but she recognizes that the scale doesn’t tell everything. “Different things started happening for me that I had no idea could be beneficial,” she says.

She noticed them victories without scale:

• His blood pressure, cholesterol level and HbA1c level are now normal.

• Cardio has strengthened her lungs and she hasn’t had bronchitis since 2018 or refilled her inhaler prescription for two years.

• She can now sit on restaurant benches.

• She uses a bath towel instead of a bath sheet: “I always used bath sheets because I was so big. One day I grabbed a bath towel and when I wrapped it around me I started crying. I couldn’t believe it fit.

• When she applied for Global Entry, the officer looked at her passport and license and said, “This looks nothing like you.” » She had to explain that she had lost 100 pounds.

• She can run.

• She can cross her legs.

• She is a size 10, instead of a size 24.

• She can buy a collar off the shelf instead of needing to have one custom made.

• His glasses fell off because his face was smaller.

She made it a habit to exercise with morning workouts and daily walks.

Ramos started going to the gym right after work and she kept an extra bag of gym clothes at work. This way, forgetting your workout gear couldn’t be an excuse for not going to the gym. This schedule worked for a while, but as her workouts got longer, she started coming home late.

Now she wakes up at 4:30 a.m. every weekday so she can get to the gym when it opens at 5 p.m. “I do my workout, I come home, I take a shower, I stop by to see my mom get ready for the day and I leave. to work. It works very well. After work, I can go straight home,” she says. “I try never to compromise, but if I can’t get to the gym in the morning, I take a walk in the evening.”

In 2019, a potential setback turned into a boost in confidence. She needed surgery for a hernia and was unable to exercise for six weeks. “It was very hard. I was very careful about what I ate and was able to maintain my weight. It made me feel stronger. I was like, ‘I got this,'” she says.

She faced another setback when the pandemic closed her gym. She gave up the exercise habit and had to find an alternative. “I had to find ways to come back after I stopped exercising. I started cycling. The first time I walked a mile and threw up. I needed my inhaler again,” she says.

She and her husband started walking and she got back into shape. Now they can bike from their home in Glendora, Calif., to Seal Beach, 40 miles away.

WeightWatchers taught her to eat what she wants while still being mindful of what she eats.

WeightWatchers uses a points-based system, and Ramos started by trying to keep his points as low as possible. “I was really strict for the first 50 kilos, trying to live on zero point foods. But I realized I wasn’t going to be able to do this forever,” she says.

Now she plans larger meals and snacks. If she knows she’s going to have a big dinner, she adjusts her breakfast and lunch accordingly. She sometimes eats donuts and candy. “I don’t “cheat” on my diet because I’m not on a diet. I enjoy myself, I have fun and I enjoy myself,” she says. “There’s nothing I can’t eat, and that’s why I stick to it.”

She gave up alcohol. “I wasn’t a big drinker, but we had wine coolers, wine with dinner or a cocktail here or there. I’d rather use my points on a muffin than a margarita,” she says.

She buys smaller packages of certain foods to portion sizes and self-control: “If I want to eat Ritz crackers and I buy a box, I’m going to go through the whole box. If I buy a pouch it might cost more, but I only use one pouch. I know I don’t have the control to stop myself from eating the other three rounds, so it’s worth it.

She also learned to pay attention to signals that her body is full. “We are in such a hurry to destroy everything. There are things you can do to eat more slowly, like putting your fork down between bites, sitting down instead of standing when you eat, and enjoying your food with a fork and napkin,” she says.

She made her mental health a priority through meditation and therapy

Ramos uses the Headspace application to meditate. When her day or week seems chaotic and she notices a craving for foodinstead, she takes 15 minutes to meditate. She also meditates to regroup at the end of the day.

“We all have those moments where we’ve been great all day, and then at night we eat a bag of pretzels or chips. Meditation helps me see what I could have done to prevent this from happening. It helps me see where I struggled and where I can make changes,” she says.

Ramos began seeing a therapist shortly after the pandemic began, when she anxiety and stress were climbing. Therapy taught him how to eat to nourish his body. “Therapy helped me resolve my need for food as comfort. I found different ways to take care of myself,” she says.

It also helped her learn to be compassionate towards herself. “I have compassion for others, but I’m sometimes brutal to myself,” she says.

“I used to be athletic and outgoing, and when I started gaining weight, everything changed. I became shy and introverted because I was embarrassed to be so tall compared to what I had been my whole life,” she says. “No one says, ‘I hope I weigh 300 pounds.’ We get there because of different situations in our lives. My therapist helps me have a kinder dialogue with myself about my weight loss journey.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com