After battling weight gain throughout her young life, Brittany Clark, 20, knew she had to make a change.
The East Hartford woman found the strength to do so after watching NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.”
“There are no excuses anymore,” Clark said.
No excuses and no more wasting time.
Clark is on a mission to lose big and win back her life. At her heaviest, Clark was 220 pounds.
In just over a year, she’s lost 79 pounds, all by exercising and eating right. She cut portion sizes and sticks religiously to a low-calorie diet of foods including whole grains, fresh fruit, vegetables, soup and fish.
“I wore a size 16 in jeans and now I'm down to a size 10," Clark said.
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If she makes it look easy, it wasn’t. Brittany hit rock bottom with her weight in high school.
“I’m going to work out every day,” she wrote in her diary.
"I just kept going and eating and eating and eating. I didn't have it in control,” Clark said.
When she was just 19, doctors told Brittany she may have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS, a condition that leads to weight gain and other health problems, including infertility.
That’s when Clark began watching “The Biggest Loser.” She saw her personal struggle reflected in Season 11 winner, Olivia Ward, who lost 129 pounds on the show. Ward also had a diagnosis of PCOS.
“We’d hear her laughing and cheering, sometimes tearing up because I know she's very emotional about stuff like that because she could relate,” Clark’s mother, Maria, said.
“She knew when she had the PCOS, if she kept it up, she wouldn't be able to have children. She remained true to herself throughout the whole thing and she's a better person because of it. And she keeps growing and growing and that's what I plan to do too, like she had done,” Clark said.
But she knew she had to do this on her own, with no lights or cameras. She spends an hour at the gym every day and, month by month, the weight has fallen off.
“You can definitely see it. And besides the physical weight loss, you see she's so much happier. She's glowing more,” Clark’s friend, Molly Haynes, said.
This summer, Clark met Ward at NBC Connecticut’s Health and Wellness Festival and thanked the woman whose story was the inspiration for rewriting her own. And she came away more determined than ever.
“I'm going to hit my goal weight of 120, and I'm going to maintain it, and I'm never, ever going back to the way it was before,” Clark said.
Here’s a closer look at Brittany’s daily diet:
Breakfast: Fiber One Yogurt Cup: 10 calories
Lunch: Panera Classic Cafe Salad (Half): 80 calories
Dinner: Tuna Sandwich on Country Light Oat Bread: 130 calories and Light Progresso Soup (One serving): 70 calories
Here’s a look at her 90 minute workout regimen:
- Cross trainer: 40 minutes
- Elliptical: 20 minutes
- Bicycle: 20 minutes
- Stepper: 10 minutes
