Lately, lots of celebrities have been in the media shedding hundreds of pounds and us regular folks want to know just how they do it. We hear all the time about all the "Hollywood" diets and celebrities drop weight in the blink of an eye when it seems like we struggle day -to-day one pound at a time and still aren't getting the results we desire.

With Chaka Khan being the most recent to flood the headlines with her weight loss I sit back and wonder, how did she do it? I mean they say your metabolism slows down after 30, but that can't be true because Chaka Khan is almost 60. What is she doing that I'm not doing?

Chaka Khan recently sat down with Huffington Post Black Voices and opened up about her weight loss secret. Of course, as soon as everyone saw her dramatic weight loss, they instantly started whispering that she had surgery. After seeing how good she looked, I knew that wasn't true at all. I mean you can TELL when they have surgery because it always leaves them looking like they're melting, case in point Star Jones.

Here's what the "every woman" diva explained:

"They can say whatever they want. Only I know what’s really going on. My weight loss had to occur, because I was diagnosed with Type-2 Diabetes and I also had high blood pressure. And I’ve been on medication for that since last year until the beginning of this year. And I ended up going, “Oh, no, no, no, no, this is enough. I can’t live like this.” And I have a new little daughter to raise [my granddaughter], I adopted her so I have to be here. … [She] was really my first and major influence to lose weight and get healthy so I can be here for her. What I did was stopped eating and went on a strict unconditional fast for a couple of months. And went off meat, became vegan, stopped all the dairy, stopped all the meat."

I have been on my weight loss journey since around August 2011. The first month is when I lost the most weight, but there are times when I fell off, especially around the holidays. Since April, I have really picked it up and been going hard but have yet to see those kind of results. I recently took a picture and saw that I did drop a tremendous amount of weight so I guess a picture is worth a thousand words.

I have been following a diet plan as well that somewhat consists of fasting, which is what Chaka Khan said she was doing. I understand exactly where she's coming from because I was once told I was borderline diabetes and there was no way I wanted to have that. Plus, high blood pressure runs on both sides of my family and I've always been one to have really low blood pressure but since I've gained so much weight it has started to creep up in the danger zone.

Celebrities have been known to do all sorts of master cleanses to drop weight quickly and I honestly can't say I'm against. People may say that it's unhealthy, but so is being overweight with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes of any kind. I would rather drop weight really quickly to keep me from going into any of those unhealthy zones so I can't say I blame Chaka. You do what you have to do in order to stay healthy.

Lets face it, we live in a microwave society and everyone wants instant results, that's why most people opt for surgery which can also be very dangerous. Studies show that most people give up diet and exercise within the first 30-45 days because they don't see results. No matter what you do, there will always be a risk, but the greater risk is in staying unhealthy.

Have you ever tried a fast? What was the outcome?

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