Access Hollywood‘s Maria Menounos Talks Weight Loss

“Every time I step onto the set of a photo shoot, in the back of my mind, I can still picture the woman I was 10 years and 40 pounds ago,” – Access Hollywood’s Maria Menounos

Feeling as she was heading down an unhealthy path, Access Hollywood’s Maria Menounos got to the point where she didn’t feel good about herself and it was time to make some changes.

As we kick off Access Hollywood’s Weight Loss Week, Maria chronicles her transformation from a Size 12 to a Size 6.

“I would physically eat dinner, like, I would eat a big bowl of chicken alfredo past that should really feed four people and then an hour later I’d be in my kitchen pulling out my Eggo waffles,” Maria explained. “Not one. Not two. But three Eggo waffles with cinnamon and honey on it. My dad would be like ‘You’re eating again?’”

Back in 1997 as a sophomore in college, Maria went from a pageant-competitive Size 6 to a Size 12 in under two years.

“At like 2 in the morning, my roommate in college and I would order two large eggplant pizzas and the most we would put in the fridge at the end was maybe four slices – and those were extra large pizzas,” she revealed. “And then we would order ice cream after to be delivered in the room.”

It was absolute overindulgence, which did not go unnoticed.

“Family and friends were really the most negative to me,” Maria said. “Shocking isn’t it? It got pretty cruel and it’s really sad because I really didn’t look that bad.”

“It definitely doesn’t motivate you to do anything, that’s for sure. You just want to keep eating. I would actually hide and eat more,” she added. “So my family would come over and they would do the pageant wave to me and say ‘Remember this?’ and basically I would just get a tub of ice cream and hide in my garage and eat it because they had just made me so depressed.”

Of note, while 12 – 14 is a healthy size for many women, for Maria’s frame, it was a strain.

But after an 11-month process, Maria is now 40 pounds lighter and countless times healthier.

“People stop me on the street all the time to ask me how I lost the weight because it is like the massive secret that everyone wants to know and I would seriously look at my legs and my hips and my thighs and go how does this ever go? How do you get rid of that? How?” she concluded.