I lost 100 lbs, here’s how you can too

WHEN she was growing up, Dr Dianne Laidley Campbell was slender. But as she developed into a young adult, she experienced weight gain which she attributes to lack of physical activity, poor eating habits, and having meals late at nights.

“I grew up poor and was not fortunate to have a parent to pick me up, so I had to take public transport. This meant after school ended I had to hurry to get a bus to go home, so I could not participate in extracurricular sporting activities as I would have wanted to. Interestingly, I hardly ate, but as I approached adolescence I began to eat more, and that, coupled with the lack of exercise, saw the weight coming on in my late teens to early 20s.

“I was eating late at night, eating fast foods, especially when I was living on campus and not at home to get a proper meal, eating a lot of fried chicken, all of those foods. I was not eating on time, not eating all my meals, never ate breakfast, and my first meal for the day was lunch. By that time I was starving, and so I ate more than my fair share, then I would eat dinner late at nights. This was on and off, but went on for about 15 years,” she said.

After the birth of her third child in 2016, Dr Laidley Campbell’s weight climbed to a whopping 240 pounds. She decided in October of that year that it was time to trim away some of the fat.

Prior to 2016 she had made several attempts to lose weight, but they all ended in failure.

“Once I lost 10 pounds, and at the end of medical school I lost 30 pounds, but shortly after that I had my first child. Another time I had chikungunya, then I got tendinitis and couldn’t walk properly for months. Then I became pregnant with my second child. After my third child was born, I said, this is it,” she shared.

But in October 2016, while on her weight loss journey, Dr Laidley Campbell had to start with changing her diet because her C-section prevented her from going to the gym right away.

She explained that she started with small changes. She stopped eating late and cut out juices, and by December 2016 when she began going to the gym, she had lost 15 pounds. At that point her weight wouldn’t budge, so she sought the help of nutrition consultant Kirk Bolton.

“He helped change my life. I did not plateau as much as I thought I would. Each time I did, I upped the exercise and went straight back to losing at least one to two pounds every week,” she shared.

Today Dr Laidley Campbell weighs 140 pounds and says she has got her life back.

“Over the years I grew a thick skin. I was not fat growing up, so people would see me after how many years and would say things like, ‘You must stop eat’, ‘How you get so fat?’ and these comments were also from fat people. My sister used to cheer me up and say, ‘They are fat too, so don’t let it bother you.’ Now what I value most is how I feel in my body. I can climb stairs. I don’t feel out of breath or like an elephant is sitting on my chest. I can jog up steps. That feeling is priceless,” she said.

Dr Laidley Campbell points out that she had to make several sacrifices to achieve her goal. In addition to her commitment, she heaps praises on her nutritionist Kirk Bolton and her trainer David Hemmings from Greg’s Extreme Fitness in Spanish Town.

“I had to stay up late at night and prepare meals for the following day. I had to find the time to go to the gym, which was not easy. I had to stay away from family or any social event that involved eating as I love food and knew how easy it would be for me to regress. I decided anything I did not need to go to, I would not go. Without Bolton and Hemmings I could not have had the level of success I achieved,” she admitted.

Next on the agenda for Dr Laidley Campbell is maintaining her current weight and sculpting her body. Her encouragement to people struggling with weight loss is to realise there is no quick fix and that it takes a great deal of dedication and discipline.

“If it doesn’t come naturally, it can be learnt. I learnt how to drink water, how to eat vegetables and how to do everything I do now,” she said.

Overall, Dr Laidley Campbell lives by Romans 8:28 : “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”