Overcoming the odds; after battling weight problems with a string of diets, Dayna Devon discovered exercise was key in taking the Extra weight off

Comfort for Dayna Devon, host of TV's Extra, used to be a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia and The Thomas Crown Affair. Now it's Carbolite's pistachio flavor frozen yogurt, her husband Dr. Brent Moelleken and The Thomas Crown Affair. While it only took a matter of hours to empty a Ben & Jerry's carton, now the 5'4 1/2" entertainment journalist has just a few spoonfuls of Carbolite and is done.

Turning point? Perhaps it was the two sizes she gained since moving to Los Angeles and getting her big break as weekend anchor on Extra. "I would see myself on TV and cringe," Devon remembers. "My face looked so bloated and my middle was getting bigger and bigger." Admittedly, Devon has a long history with diets. "I've done every diet known to man and think I got divorced because of it--the cabbage soup diet may have put him over the edge," she laughs.

However, Devon's current exercise and weight loss program is no laughing matter. "For the first time, I hit 129 pounds--my lowest weight ever. Some people learn to lose weight and make it a lifestyle pretty quickly. For me, it's been a real process," she admits. Always wanting a career in broadcast journalism, Devon struggled with her weight as a young woman and was discouraged by many, including her mother, from having such high hopes. Devon was simply told she was "too fat" to have a successful career as an on-air television broadcast journalist. Yet she persevered, working hard to learn her trade and lose the extra weight. "It's been almost a 20-year journey--learning how to control my weight, what works and what doesn't," she says.

So what works? "I hate to say it, but it's the same old thing," says the 32-year-old blonde. "I have to exercise, drink a lot of water, get enough sleep and eat sensibly. When I'm fatigued, I crave sugar and caffeine, which are killers for me. I can't do the Atkins diet, but high protein and low carbs work for me. Brent put me on what I call an 'apple diet,' so I get enough fiber. I eat two apples a day--one for my morning snack and another in the afternoon. I just throw them in my purse. When I'm tired of a plain apple, I put lemon juice or peanut butter on it."

The savvy journalist has also come up with inventive ways to sabotage bad food choices whether at home or dining out. "I always have Lean Cuisines in the freezer [in case] I get really hungry and don't want to fix something," she explains. "When Brent and I eat out, we negotiate. When we have Mexican food, I'll say 'five chips.' 'OK, five chips.' So when the basket comes, we each take five chips and have the waiter remove the rest. Then there's no longer temptation. Another trick is when I'm done with my meal, I'll unscrew the salt shaker and pour salt or my diet Dr. Pepper on it. I'll do anything so I won't pick at my food. It works!"

Devon's tricks might not be cutting edge, but they require a little more effort than over-seasoning food. These strategies won't work unless you introduce regular exercise into your lifestyle. "I'm never going to love to exercise," Devon admits, "but I know I have to." With an elliptical trainer and treadmill at home, she will typically exercise 30 minutes and sometimes only 20 minutes. "On a really good day it could be 40 minutes, but that doesn't happen too often. However I discovered you get a lot in return from doing 20 minutes of cardio four times a week," she says.

Devon combines aerobic activity with one-hour weightlifting routines three days a week. "My trainer, Steve Zim, said I had poor posture and needed to work on my back muscles," she recounts. "That's due to years of doing fitness tapes and quitting when the video came to back exercises. Inadvertently, I developed the front of my shoulders and not the back. Now it looks like I'm not standing straight."

Besides shoulder work, Zim has Devon doing ab, back, arm, leg, butt and thigh exercises--a complete-body workout. "My butt is something I really needed to work on," Devon says honestly. "If I see another lunge, I'm going to scream. We do a ton of lunges and squats. However, I've really seen a difference in just six weeks. I never thought I could get such great results."

Just in time, too, for Devon walked down the aisle in a sleeveless wedding gown this April. "Just from cardio and dieting I lost an inch in my bustline, waist, hips and butt. That was before I began my regular weight training. Now I've taken more off," she confesses. Devon's approach to her new healthy lifestyle is similar to that of Weight Watchers. "They say take it hour by hour, day by day ... that's what I do and it seems to work for me," she recognizes. "I feel so much healthier, have much more energy and really like the way I look."

Bonnie Siegler has covered celebrity fitness for American Fitness since 1990. Based in Playa del Rey, California, she is an internationally known writer whose work has appeared in McCall's, Redbook and InStyle.

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