The Biggest Loser host AJ Rochester understands how the show’s contestants feel. Formerly 109kg, AJ lost a whopping 50kg by changing her lifestyle and attitude to food. She then wrote two books about it — The Lazy Girl’s Guide To Losing Weight and Getting Fit. Here she shares some of her rules for healthy, permanent weight loss.
1. Eat! Especially breakfast
“In my Healthy Body Club, 99 percent of the people who join don’t eat breakfast and go long periods without eating. From my own experience, the first thing to do if you want to lose weight is eat breakfast — and the second thing is to eat every three or four hours and get your metabolism burning.”
2. Don’t go hungry
“You should never go hungry. There’s a preconceived idea that if you’re going to lose weight or diet, you’ll go hungry — but you don’t have to. Eat healthily, eat regularly and move. It really is that simple, but people don’t believe you.”
3. Eat healthily and make better choices
“Eat healthy, low-fat food. Eat less at dinner and finish with fruit salad, not cake. Find healthier foods and better alternatives. When I was going to pig out, I pigged out on licorice instead of chocolate. Don’t go without — just change what you eat.
4. There’s no excuse for not exercising
“I broke my leg one week into my diet and was in a bed and then a wheelchair — but I still exercised, doing aqua aerobics and stuff in my wheelchair. The thing is, there’s no excuse. You can do it. People say there are only thin people at the gym, but you know what? There is a reason. You must act like a healthy person until you become one.”
5. Get support
“I was just so alone in my weight loss — years of loneliness and self-hatred and feeling like I was the only person in the world. I think the most important key to weight loss is getting motivation and support. I had Nutcase [a counsellor], I had Crusher [a trainer], I had Bean Sprout [a dietitian], I had my friends. I was constantly turning to people saying, help me.”
6. Don’t ban food you love
“You can still eat the food you love, so get that out of your head. Don’t have last-minute meals, don’t have ‘this is my last big pig-out’. Just eat as healthily as you can for as long as you can — and when you have a fall down, just pick yourself up and keep going.”
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