Star of 2002’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos admits to having infertility problems for over a decade before she was involved in the film project. In 2004, she admitted defeat when she was told that it was unlikely she and husband Ian Gomez would be able to conceive. After that, she simply retreated from the spotlight to focus on writing and to “just grieve what had happened to me,” she says.
In this period, Vardalos put on a lot of weight and also began to suffer from dizzy spells. “My blood sugar went out of control. Diabetes runs in my family so I went to see my doctor,” she says. “He was like, ‘Buck up,’ and it was sort of the wake-up call that I needed to hear.”
“I’m not one of those people that can suddenly start running and hire a Pilates trainer, it’s just not my thing,” says Vardalos. “The walks helped clear my head. I was weighing myself once a week, just trying not to be obsessive about it. I just wanted to feel better; I wanted to feel healthy.”
She used clothes to keep her motivated during the process of weight loss. “I would just stand naked in my closet and try things on,” she says. “I didn’t want it to be about losing weight, or what I looked like, but how I felt. The reward was how much energy I was gaining every single day. I could feel myself coming out of my period of grief. I felt refreshed.”
