By The Praying Woman
Actress and gospel singer Tamela Mann has been having a great time
lately. With an award-winning song in 2013, “Take Me To The King” off
an award-winning album. Her show just got green-lighted to begin
airing in 2015 with her husband of 26 years, David Mann on BET. And
she’s managed to continually keep the weight off (it’s reported that it
was over 240lbs she lost).
“The first thing people say is, ‘Y’all look good! Y’all don’t look like you do
on TV,’ ” says Tamela.
“People see us every day [on TV]. They saw that we were big, and they
saw the drastic weight loss in both of us, ” David chimes in. “Everybody
would ask, ‘Why are you doing it? What are you doing it for? ’
For many African American families, a lot of the time when we sit down
to dinner, we can have two or three starches in one meal,” Tamela adds.
“You can still have some, but you don’t have to have as many.” Instead
of bread and potatoes, for example, David chooses one or the other.
Sticking to an eating plan can be tough, so David has asked Tamela to
be his “sugar manager since he was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in
2013.” If David strays too far from his plan (she notes he has a
weakness for sugary breakfast cereals), she gently reminds him.
Another key to Tamela leading a healthy life is resisting temptation.
The Manns’ five children are all grown now, but when they lived at
home, they protested when their parents threw out the junk food in
the house. “For me, it was just a matter of life and health. I thought
everybody was supposed to [change with me]. I thought they loved
me!” David says with a laugh. “But we’ve tried to cut the junk.” He
says that now all the Mann children (and the couple’s eight
grandchildren) are working on eating healthfully, too.
And they didn’t just stop with the food, Tamela and David both focused
on their drink intake as well.
When the Manns get off track from time to time—as everyone does on
the quest for health—their first step is to look at what they drink. “You
don’t realize that we drink a lot of our sugar: in our sodas, our sugary
juices,” David says. “I just tell people: Cut back off the juice and sodas.”
And it’s not just David and Tamela watching liquids with excess sugary
calories. Their children and grandchildren are curbing their intake,
too. “The moms dilute the juices [with water],” Tamela says. “If they
have lemonade, we put a lot of ice in it, to help cut back.”
The couple also exercises regularly to help the pounds stay off. It’s a
husband and wife effort with Tamela.
Growing old happily together has
a lot to do with how healthy you are, inside and out.
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