OKLAHOMA CITY -- Successful weight-loss programs always include changing the way you eat -- but few ask you to eat your meals in reverse order.

Eyewitness News 5 learned Monday that one woman recently did just that in an experiment that brought her dramatic results. In fact, Tricia Cunningham's backwards diet helped her lose 167 pounds.

When Cunningham was in her 20s, she reached a peak weight of 292 pounds. She said her extreme obesity was also a source of extreme pain.

"My joints would hurt, my back would hurt ... even the vehicles I drove had to be bigger because I was bigger," Cunningham said.

One day, Cunningham said, she decided that she was finished with being overweight.

"I woke up that morning, looked in the mirror and said, '(That's) it,'" she said.

Cunningham said she liked vegetables, fruit and fish but added that she didn't want to starve herself or become a vegetarian. So she cooked up a plan.

Her secret?

"Eat what you would normally eat for dinner -- for breakfast," she said.

Cunningham eats salmon, cod and any protein she wants -- all cooked in orange juice -- every morning. She said that she also eats five to six cloves of garlic a day to boost her metabolism.

Her favorite side dish is something she calls "The Ultimate Mish-Mash." To make the unusual dish, Cunningham dumps any vegetable she has into a saucepan -- including frozen broccoli, beans, spinach, garlic, fresh mushrooms, lots of onions and celery -- along with two eggs.

Cunningham then cooks the mixture into a vegetable soufflé and washes it down with hot lemon water -- and she swears it works. For dinner, Cunningham eats breakfast items, including oatmeal with shredded wheat cooked in orange juice -- not milk.

After she started the diet five years ago, Cunningham went from a size 22 to a size 1. In just nine months, she lost 150 pounds.

Cunningham now weighs 125 pounds. She said she just came in second in a bikini contest and has never felt better.

"I took 10 years off of my life," she said. "If I can do it, anyone can do it."

Cunningham said the diet wasn't a temporary fix. She said that she has kept the weight off since she initially lost it.