'I Lost 150 Pounds By Focusing On The Basics.'

This Ohio mom used simple lifestyle changes and an emphasis on fitness and clean eating to drop excess weight and look stunning.

- Kristin Mahoney

ERICA LUGO was sitting on the couch in late 2014, eating yet another sugary snack, when her toddler, Connor, asked her to come play with him. Lugo, who at age 27 weighed 322 pounds, found it tiring just to move around—so she told her son she couldn’t. And that was the moment she realized something had to change. “My heart sank,” Lugo recalls. “The fact that I couldn’t fulfill a simple need like bonding with my son took a toll on me. I decided then and there to make this change for him.”

It wasn’t her first attempt at weight loss, but this time Lugo decided to start with simple lifestyle changes like moving more and eating smaller portion sizes. She began by walking on the treadmill at the gym. “I would challenge myself to do a brisk walk for the length of one song,” she says. “Then as I got better, I started doing interval training.”

A New Challenge