Rosie Mercado is a Las Vegas-based, TV host and life coach who has been on ‘The Doctors.’ She used to weigh above 400 pounds, but she has absolutely changed her life and herself.
The life of Rosie Mercado was not always good. In 2014, When she touched a weight of 410 pounds and was asked by an airplane worker, she had to buy another seat to fit on the plane. This hit her a weak point.
The incident upset her and even made her tears come out, she describes her feelings to People en Español, as it was a wake-up call: “I think it was a way of God telling me: ‘You need to take control of your life.’‘
And she made it! She lost 300 pounds by holding herself from food and some hard working exercising in just over a year and then determined to get the gastric sleeve surgery. “It’s not an easy walk. Surgery is just a tool. It’s not guaranteed success,” she said. “Success comes from discipline — it forces you to wake up and pay attention to what you’re eating. It’s a lifestyle.”
The Mexican-American plus model, TV host, and motivational speaker of 41 years of age is currently admiring her curves at a size 12/14 and relishes her stamina and courage.
But reaching here was a genuine struggle. After her weight loss, she also required surgery to remove excess skin and a tummy fold to reclaim her abdomen.
She says that posing in front of cameras and taking on runways also led to criticism and public body shaming. Many people mocked her, as she was senseless for pursuing a modeling profession, but she kept hitting new doors when others closed in her face.
“When you have a dream, you have to be willing to make sacrifices,” she says.
Her life events are connected with her weight
Rosie Mercado says that her weight, which touched its peak at 424 pounds, was always related to what was happening in her life.
A set of obstacles — two divorces (one happened when she was pregnant) and her son’s health issue when he had a mild cerebral palsy diagnosis — were catalysts for her emotion-driven eating.
“My weight has always gone up in my darkest moments … I’ve always relied on food,” Mercado tells Us exclusively. “I dealt with the depression of being alone as a mom. Then also dealing with the emotions that I was no longer with my partner. On top of it, the constant criticism that, because of my weight, I was never going to attain any of my dreams.”
Mercado is now on the top of her professional game, but her career had to face a fair share of detours. She desired to be on TV, but she was discouraged by her peers because of her weight.
She opted for radio instead. “They told me, ‘You’re too big for TV. You’re OK from the chest up but from the chest down, it’s not gonna happen girl,‘” she says.
But in 2012, she showed them wrong. Despite her weight, she got a gig in front of the camera on Curvy Girls’ USA network reality show. Still, while on a red-eye flight home to care for her kids after filming the series, Mercado was informed by a flight attendant that she had to purchase a second seat to fit on the plane seat.
She was embarrassed by how she was treated. When she got home, her father advised her to go to a Tony Robbins seminar.
It was there that Mercado walked across hot coals on stage, an exercise the self-help guru often uses to help attendees have a breakthrough. That moment finally sparked change. “I knew if I could do that, I could do anything,” she says.
She got a coach, began eating right, and lost 100 pounds all on her own. “I couldn’t even do a pushup. I couldn’t do a burpee. The great thing about my trainer Justin Blum, who is still my trainer today, is that he was very compassionate with me and would say, ‘Look. You can’t do this, but you can do that,‘” she recalls.
She unveils gastric sleeve surgery to lose 240 lbs. And calls skin removal ‘the most painful journey of my entire life’
Opting for gastric sleeve surgery was a “tough decision,” states Mercado. “It’s not an easy walk. Surgery is just a tool. It’s not guaranteed success. Success comes from discipline – it forces you to wake up and pay attention to what you’re eating. It’s a lifestyle.“
Mercado got the surgery to get the wholesome look – not to be super skinny.
“There’s no goal for me to be a size 6,” she says. “I just want to be healthy and fit. Being obese is putting your life at risk every single day.“
With the help of her surgery and commitment to a wholesome lifestyle, Mercado dropped over 200 lbs. – which headed to a new issue. Mercado had 20 lbs. of excess skin on her belly, which began to rashes, pain, and general uneasiness.
“I had to be in Spanx the entire time,” she says. “I couldn’t run without Spanx because of the weight of the skin. You lose all this weight, you’re excited, and then you take your clothes off and you have all this excess skin. New issues start coming up.”
So Mercado chose to get skin removal surgery, getting a full tummy tuck to reconstruct her stomach.
“That has been by far the most painful journey of my entire life,” she says. “It was burning, aching, tubes coming everywhere.“
Even though it was a long spoon and unpleasant process, she has no regrets.
“I would do it all over again because I am able to wear clothes that I was never able to wear, I can run and I don’t feel the pulling of my skin, I’m not dealing with the skin rashes,” she says.
Mercado has lost a total of 240 lbs., making her from a size 36 to a size 12/14.
“I’m not perfect, I’ve still got cellulite, but it’s a huge improvement to the problems I was dealing with,” she says. “I’m able to do so many more things. My confidence comes, not just from the way that I look, but from the freedom that I have.“
She remains dedicated to a healthy lifestyle to manage her goal weight. Mercado continues to boot camp sessions three days a week and works and walks three other days a week. She sticks to a diet of lean protein, vegetables, and fish, and avoids sugar.
And she doesn’t care if other people dislike her choices.
“I’ve already gotten slammed for losing weight,” says Mercado. “Everybody says, ‘You’re no longer plus size.’ If you compare size 12/14 to a size 36, I don’t look plus size, but I’m still plus size, I still have curves. At the end of the day, it’s your body and [you should do what] makes you feel better.“
The story of Rosie Mercado is an exceptional example that dreams can be fulfilled at any time. Not only did she prefer a career where it’s already challenging for plus-size women to be accepted, but she also did it after getting to a healthy weight. It’s evidence that willpower is the most powerful of all.
