In the latest issue of Women’s Running, plus sized model Erica Schenk is featured on the front cover with the tagline “Run Strong, Stay Cool!” Erica stays fit by running regularly despite her size showing others that running is an activity anyone can participate in. Check out more photos from her photoshoot below!

Image Source: Women’s Running / James Farrell.

Image Source: Women’s Running / James Farrell.

Image Source: Women’s Running / James Farrell.

Read more about Erica Schenk’s interview with Women’s Running magazine here.

Brittany Wolfe recounts her story of how she lost 40 pounds in four months after a chance meeting with friends that inspired her to change her life around. Below are her before and after picture; going from 263 pounds to 222. Read an excerpt from her post below.

Between the countless hours of work and lack of sleep, our founder and key developer, Eric, from Model My Diet is partaking on a diet challenge of his own. It is very strict and requires a lot of “will power”. It is no specific diet, just calorie counting and focusing on changing his eating environment. 

Like most people who try a new diet, he has always struggled with being overweight. He has his favorite foods like anyone else and his passion for baking his own bread and pizza dough contributed to his weight gain. 

He understands his diet is not for everyone, which is why he embarks on this journey alone. That means cooking for himself and monitoring the steps he takes to improve his lifestyle, which can be difficult for a man of his profession. Sitting for long hours can pose a risk of cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure. A lot of people struggling through weight loss work in positions that force them to sit hours on end. Even as I write this entry, I feel my body fall into this sedentary state. 

So why do it? Why does he subject himself to such a strenuous challenge?

Eric has tried every diet and diet app from My Fitness Pal to Seconds Pro. In each app, he is either counting calories or counting kilometres. 

Although each app helped him monitor his health, it is his will power that allows him to power through. 

Having will power and determination forces him to measure each portion, count every step, and weigh in daily. And as he puts it, “Will power takes a lot of energy.” 

So how does he plan on maintaining his goal?

To maintain his daily weigh-ins, he has renewed his friendship with his digital scale, checking his progress daily. Seeing his progress has given him the courage to abandon his love of bread, potatoes, and pasta; eating more lean meats, fruits, and vegetables.

The Little Black Number

 Starting with the most popular and recent before and after by Toronto-based photographer Blake Morrow. 

His photos series of his friend Beth posing with her new body after her bypass surgery takes an animated look at her transformation. 

For her model, we continued with the beach theme and stayed true to her new look with this black one piece bathing suit. 

The Two Piece Wonder

This young girl got fit for summer and it only felt right to give her a model that reflected that. Now she and her model can enjoy their curves in the sun.

The Bold and Beautiful

This weight loss challenger reached her goal and was able to show off that black and white striped two piece bikini. 

Lucky for us, we had a one piece striped halter very similar to the ensemble above. Her model’s amazing transformation is just a reflection of the hard work and dedication that goes into a weight loss goal.

Rainbow Ambition

This rainbow multicoloured two piece bikini was inspired by this young girl who went beyond her weight loss goal. Not is she and her model toned, but enjoying their new bodies. How did they do it?

 Anyone who smiles during their workouts can find the motivation to reach their goals. It is always best when you have your own virtual partner to cheer you on!

St. Patrick’s Day is here and most people around the world will be heading to their local bar participating in the the St. Patty’s Day revelry. While some will try to control their alcohol consumption and dawn their flashiest green attire, everyone will be surrounded by cheer and merriment. As we reflect on this joyous day, we looked into the things that symbolize St. Patrick’s Day.

Other than the clover being a rare commodity, each leaf has four meanings: faith, hope, love, and luck. Let’s look at why the four leaf clover is more important than any charm, because of the message it stands for and how we can incorporate that message into our own lives.

Faith

When we created the Model My Diet Community, iPhone and Android app, we wanted to promote weight loss through support and acceptance of others.

Like any other company managing a Facebook page, we posted the occasional inspirational quote and before-and-after pictures of past users. However, we had to respect that everyone who started using the app had not found success and were still struggling to reach their goals.

So how do you get people to have faith in their model when they are eager to see the results of their progress?

One of our users Stacy contacted us with a picture of her model with the hopes of getting a little support to reach her goal. Once our Facebook community saw the challenges that Stacy faced in completing that goal, they stepped in to give her the overwhelming support she needed. Their words assured her that she was not alone and gave her the strength to continue on. With the right words of encouragement, we can have faith in reaching our goals and strengthening ourselves through our virtual models.

The assumption that everyone uses their models solely for weight loss is very limited and is distancing us from our faithful followers. So how do we go beyond the virtual and connect to the spiritual? 

One thing we noticed, is the surprising amount of people who send us personal messages showing us their progress. From images of their models to current photos of themselves. These users give us an insight into why they use their model and how much of a positive impact their model has had on their life.

One of our UK users, who contacted us from the Facebook community, set a personal goal for herself to lose seven stone by New Years 2015. Kathryn Clark, and her model below, contacted us with the hope of raising awareness for Macmillan Cancer and getting personal support for her own model.

Reading her Tumblr inspired us to share her story in the hopes that it will have the same impact on other users that it has on us.

Love

Love is a universal action that is expressed in many different forms. The concept of showing love to your model is still foreign to some of our users.

After all, your model is a virtual reflection of yourself and the person you want to be. Once you create the avatar, how do you stay in touch with “it”?

We pondered this question for some time and got our answer in the form of a love note.

We have written earlier about the impact the love note campaign has had on us and our users, but the message it sends represents our values and intentions for the Model My Diet community. We want to continue showing peace, love, and support, but love starts with oneself. Seeing many followers sending us love notes congratulating their model’s progress reminds us how strong an impact love has on improving one’s self-esteem and image of their model. Our Pinterest board Love Note to My Model proves just that; helping people take the right step towards weight loss.

Luck

Some people say luck is when chance and opportunity meet, but was it luck that brought us to our faithful followers? Is it by chance that you encountered these words and felt a heartstring pull as you read them. We can attribute this divine encounter to luck, but we would like to think our users needed us and we needed them.

We are more lucky to get to know our users models daily through love notes and anonymous posts. It reminds us of what our goals are and helps us in the right direction of building of community of supporters who want to promote peace and love amongst each other.
As we come to a close, we want to remember that St. Patty’s day is not just a day to indulge our vices, but to be reminded of the values that can be implemented in our daily lives.