Success story: Alisha DeVille

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Alisha DeVille
• Amount lost: 114 pounds in 13 months
• How: Changing eating, exercise habits

Alisha DeVille was out shopping, and tried on a top.

A size 28 top. She looked at the tag and realized something had to change.

It was just too much.

“It was the heaviest I’ve ever been,” she said. “I told my husband I was changing my lifestyle. I started at the gym the next morning.”

And change she did. To date, the stay-at-home mom of three is at 141 pounds. She’s lost more than 115 pounds, and she’s still going.

“At first it seemed like a spur of the moment thing,” said her husband Chris. “I had my doubts, but once she started and I started with her, working out and watching her carbs and all, after probably the first two or three weeks we started losing weight and I thought how happy she was that she was losing that weight. How much more energy she had.

“It was something we could stick to.”

Though his weight loss is not as dramatic as hers, Chris DeVille has also dropped 35 pounds.

Alisha DeVille credits her success to a low-carb diet and five-day-a-week exercise routine. It’s not Atkins or South Beach, she said, but her own nutritional selections that are mainly low-carb. And she’s cut out most sugar, opting to replace it with calorie-free Splenda.

“When you go to a Chinese buffet and eat tons of rice and carbs and fried food, you come away feeling stuffed and you have no energy,” Chris DeVille said. “With this, when you eat a one-pound steak or something, it’s a different kind of full. You’re satisfied but not stuffed.”

For the DeVilles, it was not a fad or temporary change, but a whole life transformation.

Same with exercise. She has a cardio and a weights routine, spending time on the treadmill or stair master and various weights machines.

Time at the gym is her “mom time,” she said. While her oldest two children, ages 6 and 4, are in school, her 2-year-old is able to stay in the gym nursery while she works out.

And it was a wonderful feeling when her daughter hugged her and she felt those little arms go all the way around her waist.

Not only does she look and feel better, she’s also got more energy.

“Moms can do it too,” she said. “That’s the biggest thing for moms. Moms need to take care of themselves. Nobody will do it for you. You’ve got to keep yourself going.”

In February, she met her goal of losing 100 pounds. She started at 256 pounds and a size 28, and is now 141 pounds and a size 6.

"People believe it is impossible to achieve, but I have made it possible," she said. "The most rewarding thing I have noticed is when others come up to me and tell me what an inspiration I am to them. To me this is by far the best thing that has come out of the weight loss."

To tell us your success story, e-mail sandi.beason@jackson.gannett.com.