Throughout our dinner, Measha speaks with confidence and candour. Words pour out of her as she munches on a mango salad and spring rolls; at times, eager to launch into a new thought, she'll talk with her mouth full, though she modestly throws a hand up to cover it. But when the conversation turns to her significant weight loss, she picks her words carefully. The change in her appearance is obvious. Several months ago, The Globe and Mail reported that she had shed 150 pounds, though she's no longer interested in discussing numbers. "I never went through a period of self-loathing. Being fat didn't make me a failure," she says. "So to make a big deal out of looking a different way is, I think, to the detriment of what I was before."

Diabetes, heart disease and cancer run in her family, and Measha cites this history as her motivation to become healthy. She tried the Atkins diet, to no avail. She endured two Master Cleanses, subsisting for 10 days, then 14, on water flavoured with cayenne pepper, lemon juice and honey. "I turned into this raging, bitchy person," she recalls, "because I was forced to confront my relationship with food.

"Control is so much a part of my life," she continues. "I knew there was no reason I should be that fat." Measha needed to find a routine that was more sustainable. Then in, of all places, Ann Arbor, Michigan, she stumbled into a yoga class. "I was like, 'Yoga? What is this yoga?' And it was horrible. It was butt-kickingly hard. I saw my life flash before my eyes, and I said I'd never go back."