Walking Every Day Helped Her Lose 110 Pounds

• Former weight: 250 pounds

• Current weight: 140 pounds

• Total pounds lost: 110

• Height: 5 foot 3 inches

• How long she's kept it off: Britt started her weight-loss program in 1998. She's been at her goal weight for 1 1/2 years.

• Personal life: Britt teaches junior high school French and Spanish at the Westminster Schools and she lives in Smyrna.

• Turning point: "I was 27 years old, and all of my grandparents had diabetes and died of heart attacks or strokes," she says. "So I decided to lose weight by age 30 or it'd be too hard once I got older. It worked because I had finally decided to lose weight for my health — not for my looks or because other people wanted me to."

• Diet plan: "I lost the first 75 pounds with a nutritionist and the last 35 on Weight Watchers," she says. "I eat five to six times a day and only when I'm hungry." Breakfast is cereal with skim milk and blueberries. Midmorning she has a granola bar and fruit. Lunch is a salad with lots of veggies, beets, tuna and cottage cheese, but no dressing. Midafternoon she has a yogurt with high-fiber cereal mixed in. And dinner is whole-wheat pasta with lots of veggies, beans and some olive oil.

• Exercise routine: "I lost the first 75 pounds by walking eight miles home from school every day for two years," she says. She's training for a marathon, so she works out every day doing a mix of running, Pilates and weight training.

• Biggest challenge: "Coming to grips with a new identity, even if it is a major improvement," she says. "Sometimes I forget I'm not fat anymore, and I laugh when people say I'm an athlete."

• Munchie antidote: Dry cereal or soy crisps.

• Secret to success: "Eating frequently, eating the right foods, watching portion sizes and exercising a lot," she says.

• How life has changed: "I feel like a new person. I am a much happier person," she says. "I love exercise; it keeps me healthy mentally and physically. I have a lot of energy. I love to shop for new clothes. People treat me differently because I'm at a healthy weight."

• Dining-out tips: "I stick with the letter S," Britt says. This includes salads (sans the cheese croutons and dressing), soups (non-cream-based), sushi and seafood. Another trick is to ask the wait staff to leave the bread basket and tortilla chips in the kitchen. Instead, she fills up on extra vegetables with her meal. She also alternates alcoholic beverages with glasses of water or diet Coke to cut calories. source: ajc.com