Rebecca lost 5kg

Rebecca, 27, a school teacher, had one of the best motivations to lose weight in a short time – to be able to fit into her dream wedding dress! While wanting to look fabulous on her big day, she also wanted to drop the kilos in a healthy way, without following a crash diet that would be a short term fix. As you can see from her photos, she achieved her goal and looked beautiful, with a bit of help from The Biggest Loser Club.

"The first photo (shown above, at left) was when I got engaged. I was at my heaviest – 63kg. I didn't need to lose a huge amount of weight but I wanted to feel glamorous and gorgeous on my wedding day. Trouble was, I didn't do anything about it until three months before the wedding – I like to leave things until the last minute! I was watching Series 2 of The Biggest Loser and it really appealed to me. I didn't want to do a milkshake diet or a 'get-in-shape-real-quick-for-summer' diet – they're all rubbish. You read so may diet books and fad magazines and it’s hard to find out what sensible eating really is. You can do anything for three weeks but your life isn’t three weeks long! What I liked about The Club is that it wasn't a diet, it was a way to change my old eating habits."

What helped Rebecca get svelte in 12 weeks was understanding the importance of portion size and becoming aware of how much she was really consuming. "I learned I was eating too much bread, rice and pasta. I was used to eating big meals at home and if you go out you get such a huge portion of food. I really learned about serving sizes and how much in a day that actually was. I used the diary religiously and I loved the food search – it was quite addictive, actually. I told everyone in the office where I worked about the calorie value of everything. At first they thought I was mad but they really got into it too."

Rebecca also got an understanding of how much exercise she had to do to burn off what was on her plate. "I did a lot of walking; I was a member of a gym, too. And just for fun, I recently started circus training – it’s brilliant, really awesome!"

In the last weeks before the wedding, a hectic work schedule and the wedding preparations started to take their toll on Rebecca – she wasn't sure she was going to make her goal weight before the big day. "Eating properly and regularly and rest are important to me. Just before the wedding, I was tired and stressed and started craving chocolate at around 3pm. I just wanted anything to boost my energy levels because I was flagging. When I was really busy it was hard to keep things in check. It wasn’t easy to stay on target and the last kilo was very stubborn."

Despite the pressure, Rebecca stuck with it and got to the altar in her dream gown, weighing 5kg lighter. "It doesn’t look as if there's a great deal of difference in my 'before' and 'after' photos, but it felt as if there was. I had the most wonderful wedding, it was so joyous, and I felt like a glamour queen. Then we went to Noosa on our honeymoon and I felt great at the beach. It was so worth it – I felt gorgeous on the day and I've kept the weight off since then."