But her most profound personal triumph of recent years may be the loss of 40 pounds and adopting a whole new attitude about food. “It's a lifestyle change,” Mo'Nique reveals during a telephone interview. "I don't call it a diet, I call it a lifestyle because I'm not going to tell you that I'm never going to have a piece of chocolate cake or Popeye's chicken. I'm not going to put myself in that place because that's what makes it crazy."
Growing up in Baltimore, Md, Mo'Nique says she was always a big girl; her parents never made anything out of it. It didn't keep her from connecting with her shy high school sweetheart Sidney Hicks, who's now her husband. And she wasn't self-conscious about taking the stage at a comedy club on a dare, a move that launched her as a comedienne and actress. Her weight also didn't stop her from landing a break-out role playing the fiesty and Stanley-obsessed Nikki Parker on the UPN sitcom The Parkers or becoming the first African-American woman this millennium to host her own star-studded late night talk show, The Mo'Nique Show on BET.
A large part of Mo'Nique's appeal is the way she's embraced her size, becoming a role model for women everywhere. She turned fat into a badge of honor meaning “Fabulous and Thick” with Mo'Nique's F.A.T. Chance, a highly-rated reality show and plus-size beauty contest on the Oxygen network.
But admits she stopped to think about the health issues that can come with carrying extra weight after her husband expressed his fear that they might not be able to grow old together. “Because when you hear I want you for life and you realize you're 262 pounds and you're only 40 years old and you start doing the math” Mo'Nique says. “It made logical sense. When you hear someone that's so genuine and sincere say I want you for a lifetime, why would you try to fight that?”
The first thing she did was hire Erica Sammy, her husband's personal trainer. “I made a huge commitment to exercise,” Mo'Nique says. “We make sure we get the exercising in. That is a must and it has been great. It's been very therapeutic.”
Her goal is getting exercise five days a week. Their workouts are all about variety: spinning, dance classes, weight training and step climbing. "There's a waterfall in Georgia, 600 steps we do that keeps it interesting and fun," Mo'Nique says.
The other half of Mo'Nique's lifestyle change has been a shift in the way she approaches food.
She's limiting how often she eats foods like brown gravy, cheesy cornbead squares and smothered chicken that she shared in her book “Skinny Cooks Can't Be Trusted” (Amistad, 2006). But that doesn't mean she's cutting those out of her life for good.
“Now it's a lot of he said, she said,” Mo'Nique says, sliding into what could be part of a comedy routine. "We go back and forth and the food be talking, the Doritos be talking, the chocolate chips be talking," Mo'Nique says. "We be talking and sometimes I lose the battle. Now I have a conversation with myself: does this make sense? You put all that work in today and now you're getting ready to sneak you some hot-and-spicy chips."
Mo'Nique says she's not sure why some critics are accusing her of changing her Big-is-Beautiful tune after losing weight. After all, she did write the book “Skinny Women Are Evil: Notes of a Big Girl in a Small World” (Atria, 2004). “I'm 220 pounds. I'm still a big girl, especially in America,” Mo'Nique says. “I'm still saying it's okay to be a big girl, we just want to be big healthy girls. If you do have children, let's put ourselves in the position to meet their children."
She usually eats five small meals a day such as a hard-boiled egg, lean turkey slices, salad and grilled fish along with lots of water which helps keep her metabolism going and prevents her from getting crazy-hungry.
The family cook Veronica - whom Mo'Nique calls their angel - cooks “a cuisine of love” that might include chicken one night or grilled salmon and crab cakes. She still loves visiting Miss Tootsie's in Philadelphia for soul food and their dreamy sweet potato cheesecake, sipping Moscato D'Asti sparkling wine and Friday pizza nights with Sidney and their 4-year-old twins David and Jonathan.
But as she embarks on a national comedy tour called Spread the Love, Mo'Nique says she's finding ways of treating herself that don't include consuming empty calories. "I went into this little boutique in Santa Monica. I was never able to fit anything in those boutiques and I'm looking around and I see a summer knit dress and I said for a giggle, I'll go ahead and try it on,” Mo'Nique says. “And when it fit and I could really see the weight loss it was like..yeah.”
She hopes she'll inspire other big women to be fit and thick. '''I think the best advice is to fall in love with life," Mo'Nique says. "You'll want to enjoy it for as long as you can."
Mo'Nique's Healthy Lifestyle Tips
- Take five minutes to stop and think before eating something high in calories
- Eat five small meals a day of lean protein and vegetables
- Get in five varied workouts every week
For more about Mo'Nique's Spread the Love Tour, visit her official website at www.moniqueworldwide.com. For information about the Mo'Nique Show on BET, visit http://www.bet.com/OnTV/BETShows/monique
