My name is Bella Decembre (@bellagawjas_), and I’m 29 years old. I live in Orlando, Florida, and I’m a plant-based influencer building out creative recipes and helping others on their plant-based journey after losing 75 pounds with my plant-based life.
In early 2019, I had reached my heaviest weight of 220 pounds at 28 years old. I had also recently divorced my then-husband after six years together. While dealing with so much personal stuff going on in my life, I didn’t even realize how much weight I put on. I knew I needed to make changes in my life to move forward in a healthy way.
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I was motivated to go plant-based came after seeing a picture of myself that made me feel shocked by how much my body had changed.
There was an inner healing that I knew needed to take place; I needed to mend myself from the inside out. So I got serious about my healthy living journey, and I sought out to change the trajectory of my life. My children were watching me as their role model, and I wanted things to be different.
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I chose my eating plan after doing *a lot* of research on plant-based diets. I first started off eating vegan because I wasn’t fully aware of what veganism was. But after even more research, watching documentaries, and being inspired by Dr. Sebi and Nipsey Hussle, I started my journey on a plant-based diet. A vegan diet restricts you from eating all animal products. On a plant-based diet, most people avoid eating meat, but you’re not restricted from eating meat. Plant-based diets focus on eating mostly food that comes from plants.
Removing meat and dairy made a huge difference for me. I saw instant results in every area of my life: my motivation, my skin, and, of course, weight loss. Being plant-based became my lifestyle. I took the plant-based journey seriously and truly became dedicated to replacing my meat with more favorable protein options.
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Here’s what I typically eat in a day now:
- Breakfast: Smoothie with avocado toast
- Lunch: Veggie sandwich
- Snacks: Fruit bowl
- Dinner: Cauliflower steak with mashed potatoes, gravy, sautéed asparagus, and a freshly squeezed juice
- Dessert: Vegan banana walnut ice cream
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For exercise, I just keep it simple. I love to go on walks. I go on longer ones once or twice a week, but my job and schedule keep me really busy and active.
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In nine months, I lost a total of 75 pounds.
While I knew I wanted to lose weight, I also knew that healing myself on the inside was a priority. When you start a weight loss journey, you may think that once you’ve lost the weight, and that’s it. However, it’s not—you have to transition from a thinking of weight loss as just a milestone to thinking of it as a lifestyle.
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I accomplished this new mindset in part by sharing my journey with others. Doing so helped to show me that I wasn’t alone. I also didn’t let a so-called “bad” meal turn into a stretch of bad days.
I have a motto: Eat healthy, stay active, and stay blessed. Weight loss got easier when I stopped thinking of it as something that had a finish line that I was trying to get to, and I was fighting to become a new person. I had to think of the process as me becoming healthy—not me aiming for a number on the scale.
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