‘1000-Lb Best Friends’ Star Vannessa Cross Reveals 200-Pound Weight Loss Transformation (Exclusive)

Over the past two years, 1000-Lb Best Friends star Vannessa Cross worked diligently to drop a staggering 200 pounds—and now she has revealed her staggering weight loss transformation.

“My life has took a 360, let's be honest with this,” Cross exclusively told Parade ahead of the TLC show’s Season 3 premiere. “Going from being 450 pounds to where now I'm under 200, I actually hit wonderland—onederland. So I'm in the hundreds and it has been amazing.”

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Cross smashed her weight loss goals thanks to Dr. Charles Procter’s guidance and support group, bariatric surgery and a major lifestyle overhaul. For her, it started with a change in mindset.

“Food has, instead of becoming my joy, my life, my go-to, food has just become something you have to do to survive, but that's it. You don't have to eat it for fun,” she explained.

Cross added, “You don't gotta eat it because you're sad. That took a lot. I would rather go and exercise or go and walk instead of eating something for my emotions and feelings now.”

Related: Jazz Jennings Shows Off 100-Pound Weight Loss in "Inspiring" Before-and-After Video

In addition to walking regularly, Cross said she’s taken up a more intense form of cardio: running.

“It's weird to say it out loud, but I do love running,” she said, noting she aims for about a half-mile to 1 mile per day. “And I love doing the bicycles. Now I'm up to where I do the stairs, I do the arms because I'm trying to build arm muscle because there's no muscle there.”

Cross was also approved for and underwent excess skin removal surgery—another major step in her transformation.

“So we had Betsy May that hung down here on my side, my big old roll. And we had the bat wings, but as you see, the bat wings are gone,” she told Parade. "I cried my eyes out when I woke up from surgery.”

Related: 1000-Lb Sisters' Tammy Slaton Reveals Staggering 500-Pound Weight Loss in New Video

As teased in the Season 3 trailer, losing so much weight negatively affected Cross' relationships with close friends and 1000-Lb Best Friends co-stars, Meghan Crumpler and Ashely Sutton.

“It was hard because without Meghan and Ashely, I probably never even would have started losing weight,” she told Parade. “I never would have looked inside myself to find out that there was a problem.”

Cross continued, “I found out a lot more about myself by them shunning me and pushing me away...But no one in the world—Meghan and Ashely don't even understand—how it truly hurt when they just washed their hands and stopped talking to me. I'll always love them. But right now, Vannessa focuses on Vannessa.“

However, Cross has become close with two new 1000-Lb Best Friends cast members, Scott Bagwill and Tina Biel, whom TLC viewers will see go through weight loss transformations of their own.

Currently, Cross is working on a book to share the recipes, tips and advice that helped her shed 200 pounds. She also hopes to get into motivational speaking.

“I want to get myself out there since I was that big,” she told Parade. “I can show the world we can do this. No, it's not easy. No, it's not easy at all, but come on with me and let me help you through the steps. Let me show you that no weight loss surgery is not the easy way out, but for a lot of us, it's the only way out. And that's the truth.”

Catch the Season 3 premiere of 1000-Lb Best Friends on Tuesday, Oct. 22 at 10 p.m. ET on TLC and streaming on Max.

Next: 1000-Lb Sisters' Amy Slaton Reveals the Unexpected Secret to Her Weight Loss