The new TC

If you think there’s something different about Terencia TC Coward recently but just can’t put your finger on it, let us enlighten you. There is something different – actually 20 pounds different. The svelte new body TC is sporting is the result of a change of attitude, and a desire to get her body back down to her ideal weight.
“I can’t say that anything that I did that prompted the weight loss. For Crop Over 2011, I worked out and tried to get in shape and that just continued,” said the veteran calypsonian. “But it was really after having knee surgery last year that things really started to change. After having knee surgery, I realized I’m 5’ 2” and really should be weighing 130 pounds, but I was weighing close to 150 pounds. After having the surgery I knew that I had to keep that weight off.”
TC’s knee surgery came after she had been suffering for years with knee problems. The pain in her knees increased to the point that she couldn’t wear heels, and the resulting swelling and the pain often became unbearable.
“The surgery was just something that I really needed to do. I used to have a lot of pain in my knee and severe swelling,” TC said. “When they opened my knee they realized that the cartilage was damaged. Between the loose cartilage and the weight I made a decision.
Making sure that she was not too heavy and put additional pressure on her knees became a priority for TC. The first step for her was changing her diet.
“I drank a lot Oolong teas (Chinese teas) which tends to throw water off your bodies and keep your metabolism high,” TC said. “People thought I was exercising but I wasn’t. Over a year I had not been exercising. I was monitoring my diet and just drinking the tea. I liked the tea and I drank it, but I didn’t understand that the tea was causing me to lose weight.
“My manager was the one that had researched the tea, and that was when I realized that it speeds up my metabolism. I was using the tea all the time and that was what kept my weight off.”
While drinking the teas was easy, the hard part was changing her eating habits.
“Changing the way I eat was hard, because I love rice. I would eat rice every day because I am rice and potatoes person. It would be hard especially when I went out with friends and they had burgers and I would get an open-face burger,” TC said. Now I would eat proteins and vegetables. I eat mainly water vegetables, christophene, and broccoli. So now I really don’t miss Burger Tuesday at Mojo’s.”
TC said she also made other dietary and lifestyle changes.
“I also cut down my alcohol intake as well,” she said. “After I stopped doing physical therapy for my knee, I realized that it started stiffening up on me a bit. That’s when I decided to enlist a personal trainer and now I train with Marlon Reed. I still can’t run. I can’t walk up to a certain speed and I have to buy a bike because it’s helpful to strengthen my knee.”
So far her hard work has paid off because TC has lost 20 pounds and it has made an impact on her life.
“I see the difference mainly in my clothes because my clothes fit me a whole lot better,” TC said. “I’m not as winded when I’m performing as I would have been in the past. I have much more stamina.”
While it often takes these major life shifts to cause people to make changes, for TC it was her knee problems that caused her to reshape her body and her life.
“I just kind of took stock of my life. My family has a history of diabetes and heart disease, and since I’m predisposed to those things I try to keep myself on the level,” she said. “I am 45 years old and I’m 132 pounds. By next year I should be down to my optimum weight, which is 125 pounds.”