WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Tricia Cunningham used to be overweight. She has lost nearly half her weight in one pretty bizarre diet she calls "the backwards diet."

With her diet, you can eat, enjoy life, and lose weight without Atkins or South Beach diets, and counting points or enrolling in expensive programs, reported WPBF-TV in West Palm Beach.

"If I can do it, anyone can do it," said Cunningham. "I tipped out at a maximum weight of 292 pounds. My joints and back would hurt. Even the vehicles I drove had to be bigger, because I was bigger."

Cunningham has lost a whopping 172 pounds with her diet. She now weighs 125 and just came in second in a bikini contest.

"I woke up one morning, and looked in the mirror and said, 'this is it,'" she said.

Cunninham likes vegetables, fruit and fish, but she didn't want to starve herself or turn vegetarian, so she cooked up a plan.

Her secret is, admittedly, a little weird: Eat what you would normally eat for dinner for breakfast.

Cunningham cooks salmon, cod, or any protein she wants in a marinade of orange juice every morning.

She also likes to dump any vegetable she has into a saucepan and crack two eggs over them, making a veggie soufflé.

For dinner -- you guessed it -- she eats breakfast. Usually she eats oatmeal with shredded wheat in orange juice, not milk.

Cunningham also eats up to five cloves of garlic a day to boost her metabolism.

Her favorite drink is lemon water -- she swears by it.

On this backwards diet, Cunningham went from a size 22 to a size 1 in nine months. She has kept the weight off for more than five years.

Additional Resources:

Diary Of A Fat Man
What Diets Have You Tried?
What Are Your Calorie Needs?
Check Body Mass Index
Which Activities Burn Fat?
Basic Metabolic Rate