1.After losing more pounds, she joined the gym, started dancing in Zumba classes. Then she started jogging.
During her senior year of high school, an adviser at the pep club suggested Boyce try for the title of Miss West Florence, the school's equivalent of a beauty pageant. At first, Boyce laughed it off.
"I was not thin," she said. "I was still chubby, losing weight gradually."
But Boyce gave it a shot.
"I was myself and I won," beating 38 other girls, she said. "That gave me another confidence boost knowing that I could do what I set my mind to."
After graduating in 2007, she went to study theater at Francis Marion University. She competed for the local Miss Florence title and began a winning streak in local beauty pageants until she finally won the state crown in July.
Through the years, Boyce had to unlearn a lifetime of bad habits.
"It's all about learning a process, learning a lifestyle, and so many people think it's an overnight quick fix. And it absolutely is not. It takes time. It took me three years," she said.
Boyce, who couldn't finish a mile in under 11 minutes in high school, can now run that distance in seven minutes. She plans to train for her first marathon once she has time after the Miss America contest.
"You don't have to be rail thin to think you're beautiful and want to be Miss America," she said. "You need to be happy and content with yourself, get your physical activity. That's what counts the most -- not starvation diets and being rail thin."
Boyce meticulously schedules workouts and meals to prepare for Miss America. On a recent day, she cooked breakfast at home in Florence, scrambling eggs and slicing a grapefruit.
"I block out where am I going to eat, how am I going to eat that day," she said.
In the pageant world, where a woman's frame and figure are constantly analyzed, Boyce has heard the critiques: too muscular, too big, not petite enough, not a size 00.
Bree Boyce's Facebook page
"I love my body," Boyce said. "I went from 234 pounds to being comfortable and happy and being content with the way I look. Someone says I'm not a 00 -- that doesn't mean I don't continue to compete for Miss America. We need to give an idealistic role model."
She said she'd rather be on stage looking the way she does now than looking "sick, frail and thin. That's not the message that I'm promoting at all."
2.China should embrace a faster appreciation of its currency but U.S. policy makers should be wary of taking punitive actions to force the issue, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Tuesday.
Paulson, speaking during an appearance in Washington, said the U.S. and China could both benefit from Beijing taking on much-needed structural changes to its financial markets. (Read the full speech)
“I believe … very strongly that it is in China’s best interest to reform and move to a market-determined currency that reflects economic conditions,” Paulson said.
He was critical, however, of ongoing efforts in Congress to pressure China to allow its currency, the yuan, to appreciate at a faster pace. The Senate in recent weeks passed a measure allowing U.S. officials to target Beijing’s currency policy through trade penalties and various international organizations.
“I don’t think that an approach that could lead to a trade war … is the right way to go,” Paulson said.
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