“Every time I stood on the scale and saw the difference, it would keep me going,” says Tatty Hovannesya

Tatty Hovannesya is ready for a girls’ night out.

The 26-year-old senior fashion designer recently lost more than 110 lbs. and tells PEOPLE that for the first time in years, she is excited to dress up.

Hovannesya once weighed 250 lbs. — a number she reached by not exercising and too often indulging her sweet tooth.

“When I was at my heaviest, I was like, ‘This has got to stop.’ I had it in my mind that I can only look good at my goal weight, which has always been 135 lbs.,” the California resident says. “And that goal weight seemed so far away so I stopped trying because I was like, ‘Whatever, I’ll just eat.’ It was too much work.”

After bouts of unsuccessful dieting, she decided to undergo gastric sleeve surgery in December 2016.

Following the surgery, Hovannesya was forced to reduce her portions since her stomach was smaller. She also focuses on eating more fruits and vegetables and limits sweets to one day a week.

“Every time I stood on the scale, and I saw the difference, it would keep me going,” she says. “I got so many compliments from my friends and everyone around me. The more I lost weight, the better I looked, and I was like, this isn’t that bad.”

On the weekend she has one cheat day when she eats whatever she wants.

“That helps me to stay away from the sweets during the week,” she says.

Before she lost weight, she says, going out with her friends stirred up a lot of anxiety.

“Every time I had to wear heels, it was just heavy,” she says. “It was hard going up the stairs. I have the most beautiful group of friends, and they all have model bodies. I didn’t even want to take pictures with them.”

Now she says she gets to wear all of the things she loves, including skirts, and does activities like swimming — and eating in public.

“Now I don’t care. I hated eating lunch alone because I thought people would judge me and think that I needed to lose weight,” she says. “It was really messing me up emotionally but now I’m confident. I walk into a room and I don’t care what people think, and it’s great.”

Article Source: People