Dropping LBs: Allison McLaughlin

"I had been a size 16 all my teenage years. So, when I had to buy a size 18, I just really didn't want to do it. I actually started crying," she remembers. The weight was interfering with her college experience. "I wanted to play recreational sports," McLaughlin says. "I always wanted to run."

In summer 2010, she decided to do something about it. She joined the Lucille Roberts gym in Valley Stream. "The first class I took was a cardio class. Halfway through, I left," she said. The next day, she made it through the whole class. She went to the gym every day that summer, losing 30 pounds.

"Back at school, the gym was full of athletes doing their own thing," McLaughlin says. "They knew what they needed to do. I had to develop that same attitude." She did. She worked up to running on a treadmill, took spin classes and researched nutrition on the Internet. After losing the weight, she even entered -- and won -- a free makeover at Green Acres Mall. "After being overweight for so long, I didn't even know what my style was," McLaughlin says. "I was still wearing baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts."

Allison McLaughlin

24, Bayswater, Queens