If you are a sports lover, you would know who Kelly Latimer is. She hosted the Youth Olympics in 2010, was a regular face on ESPN STAR Sports and was also the face of S. League on TV last year. If you have not already noticed, she has shaped up really well recently – after fighting the battle of the bulge the past five years – just in time for her wedding this month.

Based in Singapore, Kelly was pretty fit when she was younger, having trained in competitive karate. It was during her Bachelor in Communication (Media) days at RMIT University, Melbourne, when she started to put on weight. She gained 15kg and tipped the scales at 68kg after just one and a half years. When she came back to Singapore in 2008 and saw skinny girls everywhere, she got “massively depressed” and started to try all sorts of methods to lose weight. After going back and forth and up and down with her weight, she finally threw off 14kg and is now “in her best shape ever”. She leads a pretty active lifestyle and keeps her diet about 80 per cent clean. For more details on how she lost weight, you can read my full interview with her on Yahoo! here.

“You have to love your body no matter what shape you are. You can be dissatisfied with it but you have to understand that your body has the ability to change and that change starts from you. Surround yourself with positive thoughts and people with the same goals,” she advised.

Kelly’s outgoing personality will rub off you and there are no airs about her, as she candidly shares her story with the occasional Singlish thrown in. I interviewed her during one of her sessions at Wavehouse Sentosa, a place where you can find her regularly as she loves “life in board shorts”.

We discovered that we live near each other – like a five-minute drive – and that means having lots of opportunities to work out together. So we did! We did one Bodyrock.tv workout together. A 30-day Bodyrock challenge she religiously followed was what got her into her “best shape of her life” and hence she is a huge fan of Lisa Marie.

We haven’t worked out together since – I’ve been away, she has been away, and then now she’s super busy with her wedding preparations. But I’m sure we will find more time to work out together again in the year ahead…