Believe it or not, Extra host Maria Menounos used to be 40-pounds overweight. According to E! Online , quoting Maria from her cover story in Ladies Home Journal , the 35-year old Menounos “didn’t gain the Freshman 15 – [she] gained the Freshman 40.”
Hard to believe considering how stunning Maria looks these days as host of TV’s syndicated celebrity news show Extra . But according to the article, her struggles with weight loss started early in her life. Despite being raised on the Mediterranean diet, the turning point for the young actress was when she was 13:
“When I was 13 I got a job at a doughnut shop. Surrounded by sugar for the first time in my life, I couldn’t resist. In my freshman year of high school I was a size 3, and I grew a size every year.”
She continued on about struggling with her weight:
“I could keep candy and chips in my room and eat all the late-night pizza I could afford. I grew to a size 14 and kept growing. I felt sick and lethargic. I wanted to nap all the time.”
But enough was enough and Menounos decided to take matters into her own hands, creating her own plan for dramatic weight loss. Within a year after she put herself on her self-created diet program, Maria lost 40-pounds and headed to California to begin her new TV career. However, just because the Extra host lost the weight, her eating habits did not actually improve. Despite holding onto her now thinner look, she still did not put together the proper diet for her lifestyle, relying on fast food to get by:
“There were consequences to eating so much junk. I was in and out of the hospital multiple times for exhaustion, malnutrition and dehydration. I realized my whole quest to have an amazing body needed to be seriously reevaluated.”
She continued to open up about her dramatic weight loss, admitting:
“Just because you’re thinner doesn’t mean you’re healthier. I made it my mission to figure out the very best ways to control my weight and be healthy at the same time.”
Since then the sky’s the limit for Maria Menounos, who stopped by The Ellen Degeneres Show recently to promote her new reality TV show, Chasing Maria Menounos . According to Maria, the show will document her day-to-day life under, of all places, her parents roof with whom she still lives with.
What do you think about Maria Menounos’ dramatic 40-pound weight loss? Let us know in the comments section below.