Cheryl Burke is waltzing into a healthier chapter.
The Dancing With the Stars alum revealed that she recently lost around 35 pounds by making changes to her diet and exercise routine, as well as working on her mental health.
“For me, it’s all about starting from within first instead of the aesthetic of what I look like from the outside,” Cheryl told People in an interview published May 20. “My goal wasn’t to lose a certain amount of weight.”
In fact, the 41-year-old largely credits her transformation to adopting a new mindset about her body after spending years being “obsessive” over the number on the scale.
“As a dancer, we were stuck in front of mirrors constantly, it was important to stay at a certain weight, and my dance coaches were really strict,” Cheryl explained. “It has always been something that kind of weighed on me.”
Noting that the pressure would “affect my mood on a daily basis if I didn’t feel like I was skinny enough,” she continued, “Just being consistently chastised about my weight, it wasn’t fun. I even used to travel with a scale.”
