Mpls. Woman Featured In 'People' Tells How She Lost 130 Pounds
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The latest issue of People magazine features four women who each lost 100 pounds or more and a Minneapolis woman is one of them.
Dawn Bryant, who is 37 years old and works as a marketing specialist, went from a size 22 to a size 2 in one year. What makes her story really inspiring: Her transformation only involved eating right and exercising more.
In June of last year, Bryant told me she weighed 266 pounds. By June of this year, she'd lost 130 pounds.
Bryant's story is now in the latest issue of People, but on Monday she shared it with WCCO-TV and took us along for a wild workout with her personal trainer.
We watched as she boxed outside, strapped on a harness and chain to pull a huge tire across a parking lot, and then flip another tire with her hands before sprinting down the block.
Last summer, Bryant could hardly run to the end of the block, but she was inspired to lose weight after her husband did.
"He lost 65 pounds in a year. I didn't want to be left in the dust. I wanted to be there for him. I wanted to be able to do things with him," she said.
So, she went to a small fitness center in northeast Minneapolis, run by trainer Jason Burgoon.
Bryant says it was different from other gyms she'd tried.
At Bodies by Burgoon, the workouts and nutritional advice are customized, created just for you based on your body and your health. The exercises are old-school and there are no mirrors on any wall.
Bryant says she was never successful at losing weight in the past.
"Because all I could ever do was go on the elliptical machine. I didn't know how to use anything else. I didn't want to look stupid, and I would just do the same thing over and over, when I could make myself go," Bryant said.
She started with two workouts a week with Burgoon, plus a drastic change in how she was eating: eliminating bread and sugary foods.
"I started to feel very strong. I started to exercise. I started to crave healthy foods. It wasn't because I was making myself eat them. My body really wanted them," she said.
Within four months, she'd lost 60 pounds. Three months after that, Bryant says she was down a total of 100 pounds.
"So much energy spent before was on hiding parts of me that I didn't want people to see whereas now I feel really confident and strong," she said.
Bryant tells me she lost 4 to 8 pounds a week, during the first couple of months of her journey.
Before the weight loss, she had knee pain, back pain, got winded really fast, had problems with asthma. Now, nothing hurts and she works out six times a week.
Her meals are fairly simple, but nutritious. For breakfast, she usually has oatmeal with protein powder mixed in and some strawberries. She'll snack on raw almonds. For lunch, she will have two hard-boiled eggs with some apple slices and grape tomatoes. For dinner, she'll have a small grilled chicken breast with some vegetables.
