NJ woman hated how she looked, so she lost almost 100 pounds and became a runway model

Paulette Szalay buried her feet in the sand, she recalled, and she kept having to rewrap the shawl around her arms and her shoulders.

It was breezy that day in Juno Beach, Florida, as she was suddenly consumed by a strange feeling.

She said the sensation swept over her like a tidal wave and that it pulled her away to an unfamiliar sea of self-confidence.

“I’ll never go back to where I came from,” she said in a recent interview.

Szalay, 58, a native of Elmwood Park who lives in North Haledon, weighed 252 pounds that day — Easter of last year. She is now 165 pounds and hopes to lose another 30 pounds by the end of June.

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Even more miraculous, perhaps, is how Szalay parlayed her weight loss into a side hustle for a renowned modeling agency. She just completed her second fashion show, and she already has appeared in a commercial and as a stand-in for a star of “The Real Housewives of Miami,” a reality series that streams on Peacock.

In the fall, she said, she plans to stride the runway at one of the most important designer presentations in the world: Paris Fashion Week.

Patricia Pinto, the founder of La Crème Modeling & Acting, said Szalay is among her proudest success stories. The agency, based in the borough of Mountainside in Union County, signed her in October.

“It’s not only about modeling and acting,” said Pinto, who has coached runway talent for Brooks Brothers, Versace and Yves Saint Laurent, among other high-end fashion companies. “It’s also about giving a message to the world — that we can change the world.”

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Szalay’s message is one of hope.

“I want people to know that you can change at any point in your life,” she said. “You don’t have to be unhappy. If you want to become a model, you can become a model.”

Research has found that sustained weight loss is very difficult, even for those on a rigid diet or exercise regimen. Of the scores of academic studies published on the subject, one suggests that people tend to regain more than half of the weight they initially lost within two years.

No one is more aware of that than Szalay, who has wrestled her whole life with seesawing weight.

“My mindset changed,” she said. “Something came over me and said, ‘This is it — there’s no more struggling.’ This is my new way of life.”

'I will have the fish,' she said

Szalay, a grandmother and a science teacher at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Teaneck, traveled to Juno Beach last spring with her family. The small coastal town is about 12 miles north of West Palm Beach, Florida.

As she sat on the edge of a towel under an umbrella that Sunday, she said, she watched other beachgoers — teenagers roughhousing in the ocean, women in bikinis walking where the foamy surf met the shore.

“I didn’t want to move,” she recalled.

Szalay wore Bermuda shorts, a tank top and that shawl, which she used as a cloak around her body.

“I didn’t want anything exposed,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone to see my arms. I didn’t want anyone to see how big I was.”

Then came Szalay’s epiphany, that inexplicable moment when everything changed. “It wasn’t someone talking to me — it was just a feeling that I had,” she said. “I didn’t understand what it meant until I sat down in the restaurant.”

Szalay and her family went out to eat for Easter supper, and she said she did something so unexpected that it surprised everyone at the table.

She scanned the menu, she said, and for maybe the first time in her life — or at least for the first time in a long time — she rebuffed the pasta dishes and instead ordered grilled salmon with a side of steamed vegetables.

That was her way of telling her family.

“They looked at me and said, like, ‘Wow — OK — this is different,’” she recalled. “They were stunned. And I said, ‘This is the first day of the rest of my life.’”

Advice from a student

Szalay said she made good on her promise to herself and that, within a week of her return home, she joined Planet Fitness in Wayne. She said she also consulted a nutritionist about her diet, which now consists of fewer carbohydrates and a lot of fruits and vegetables.

Another turning point came in September, when Szalay became friendly with one of her new students.

Sophia Torres, 13, an eighth grader at the middle school, is a model for La Crème. She said she encouraged Szalay to mail a headshot to the agency after her teacher complimented the black sweater that she wore.

Sophia said she told Szalay she was a model and that it seemed to pique her teacher’s interest.

“You can tell when someone really wants to do something,” Sophia said. “Modeling is a very good way to step out of your comfort zone.”

Szalay opened La Crème’s most recent show, the New Jersey Fashion Week presentation, held in a banquet room at Hilton Hasbrouck Heights/Meadowlands. The annual fundraiser for breast cancer awareness was attended by boutique owners, casting directors and emerging designers.

Although the event did not begin until 6 p.m., Szalay needed to be at the hotel before noon to meet her personal hairdresser and to have her makeup done. She then rehearsed all afternoon, practicing the pace of her walk and the tricky pose and 180-degree turn at the end of the runway.

Szalay modeled garments that night for five designers, and the former size 24 fit perfectly into a size 12 evening gown. The hot-pink dress was trimmed with ruffles, and its long train cascaded along the carpeted floor. She wore high heels and matching opera gloves, which covered her forearms.

Yet her shoulders were bare.

Even in a large room swarming with fashion photographers and people she had never met, Szalay said, she was no longer uncomfortable in her own skin. “It’s a confidence builder,” she said. “I know how hard it was to get to where I’m at right now, and I don’t want to go back.”

Philip DeVencentis is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: devencentis@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ woman Paulette Szalay lost almost 100 pounds, became runway model