R.J. Ignelzi, Contributor

It's no mysteryhow Michelle Satren lost 95 lb. She simply ate less and exercised more.

"Instead of eating three or four pieces of pizza, now I'll have just one. Maybe two if they're small," she said.

But why the 42-year-old cheesecake restaurant owner and cheeseburger restaurant manager began her weight-loss endeavour is more difficult to understand. About three years ago, a close friend, whom Satren describes as 'a very spiritual person', called her. Satren credits their conversation for triggering her transformation.

"She said she'd been thinking about me and something just came to her. She had to share it with me," said Satren with a slightly embarrassed laugh. "She told me to remember the word 'abandonment.' That was it. No explanation. Nothing. Just the word 'abandonment.'"

For some reason that neither Satren nor her friend can explain, that call or word affected her deeply.

Tailspin

"I still don't understand it, but I went into a tailspin. I couldn't eat because I was so upset, and usually I eat more when I'm upset," said Satren, who at her heaviest weighed 255 lb.

It wasn't until a few days after the phone call that Satren realised she was not only eating less food, but the food she was eating was also more nutritious. Instead of a hefty sandwich and chips for lunch, she'd have just half a sandwich and skip the chips. Her high-calorie bagel-and-cream-cheese breakfast was replaced by some lean protein, like a boiled egg, low-fat cheese or low-sugar, high-fibre cereal.

It didn't take long for the pounds to start dropping off.

Although the beginning of her weight loss may have been a reaction to her friend's mysterious epiphany, her continued success was due strictly to her own motivation and perseverance. When she realised the importance of nutrition and portion control, she made the conscious effort to eliminate fast food from her diet.

"That made a big difference. I didn't realise how much fast food I was eating," Satren said, noting that people wrongly assumed that her weight problem was due to eating too much cheesecake, when in reality 'sweets and cheesecake have never been my thing'.

"(Making the diet changes) didn't feel like a lot of effort. It came naturally to me. I just wanted to eat less and eat better."

Several months after starting her healthy eating regimen, her steady weight loss hit a plateau. She knew she needed to add exercise to her programme, so she joined the YMCA near her home in San Diego.

To make the most of her time and effort, she teamed up with Colette VandenBroeck, exercise physiologist and fitness director, who helped design a programme for Satren to help her meet specific goals: weight loss, muscle toning and better posture.

"Michelle was the ideal client. She's very self-motivated and was very eager to learn a safe exercise programme for herself," VandenBroeck said. "Every step of the way, everything we talked about and all that I showed her, she just ate it up. She was hungry for this kind of information, and she used it to be even more motivated and even more successful as time went on."

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