Lifestyle change leads Rondi Neuven to Woman’s World
If you look the next time you are in a supermarket checkout line, you may recognize Cabri native and current Redcliff resident Rondi Neuven.
Neuven is currently on the front cover of the well-known magazine Woman’s World. She is the focal point of a story on Dr. Michael Gregor, author and a licensed general practitioner specializing in clinical nutrition.
As the magazine states on the cover, Neuven has shed 213 pounds in a journey where there was no exact diet, fad or otherwise, and no invasive surgery.
Neuven knew she had to arm herself with the most comprehensive information in regards to calories and overall nutrition. She completely changed her diet, consuming more planted-based foods.
After her weight loss, she found Gregor’s website https:// nutritionfacts.org, which examines food-related studies.
How Neuven ended up on the Woman’s World cover and inside story, that was by chance.
Women’s World contacted Gregor to see if there was anyone he knew that would make for a motivational and educational article.
Coincidentally, Neuven had sent a testimonial to Gregor’s website outlining why a lot of the website’s information worked, all the while outlining her journey with whole plant-based foods.
The timing must have been right and Gregor suggested Neuven for the article. A local photographer took glamour photos and got some information from Neuven and the rest is history.
Like it is for many struggling with size, diets didn’t work for Neuven, who was well over 350 pounds at her largest point.
“I knew for years, if I was going to lose weight, I was going to make a whole lifestyle change. There are many, many ways to lose weight, I don’t deny that, but what are you doing to your insides while doing it?” she questions.
Neuven started by changing her breakfasts from high fat, protein-rich meals of sausage, bagels and cheese/ crackers to healthier smoothies. She began incorporating a whole plantbased system, she designed on her own. She would pick and choose certain aspects from different diets and then figured out a plant that would work best for her.
It was July 2016 was when she started to change her lifestyle. It took a year-and-a-half to two years of self discipline to lose all the weight. She found out the information on what foods she was eating and discovered the nutritional value in some foods.
Neuven didn’t suffer from any self esteem issues, as she will tell you she loved herself, but she had a goal and it was accomplished with sheer willpower and a deep desire to have the freedom to do what she desired.
“There are two things to know about me: I love food and I’m cheap. And what happened was, those two things clashed because I wanted to travel.
I was tired of that inconvenience of being that big... not being able to take advantage of things others could. I wouldn’t be able to bungee jump, I couldn’t zipline. It was not really about the appearance… (even though) I could only shop in one store.
“When people ask me why I was successful... I learned to love myself as a big person. I accepted myself the way I was. I used to say to my dad, ‘I think I’m fat to teach you tolerance,’” she explained.
“I didn’t care if people looked at me. I didn’t care what people said. I would try to do the things I wanted to do even when I was fat. When my son went skiing in kindergarten, I went because I could ski when I was a kid and hopefully I still could. I lasted half an hour but I could still ski.
“I got to the point though where if I love myself then I maybe I should treat my vessel a little better and start taking off some of the weight.”
While she has achieved a lot of success, it is not easy and it is still a daily struggle which she outlines in her blog, harnessthehangry.com. She says ‘hangry’ is the little monster in her head that wants to eat all the food.
“People have always been super supportive. I think the reason I ended up with a blog was that I couldn’t really go anywhere without people asking, ‘What are you doing? How are you doing this?’ I finally got to the point where I could just say, go check out my blog,” explained Neuven, who added she has received a positive response from her appearance in the magazine.
“Everybody has been awesome. My mom and dad are super excited. The community of Cabri and the librarians are looking for copies.
If you are interested in following Neuven’s journey, visit her blog at harnessthehangry.com.