Singer Mariah Carey made it happen and hopes to inspire others to do the same.
Carey, 42, lost the weight she gained during her pregnancy. She and her husband, Nick Cannon, have twins, Monroe and Moroccan Scott Cannon, born April 30. She has dropped 30 pounds on the Jenny Craig weight-loss program since July 22 and is the company's new celebrity spokeswoman.
“I feel better in every way,” says Carey, who has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide and had 18 No. 1 singles. “To me, it's mind, body and soul. I was in a bad place physically during my pregnancy.” When she was expecting, Carey had gestational diabetes and severe edema — swelling caused by excess fluid trapped in the body's tissues.
“Edema was the probably the most painful thing I went through during my pregnancy. My legs looked three times the size of what my legs do right now. I thought I would never be the same person again.” After the twins were born, “I lost a lot of water weight initially, and then I lost 30 pounds on top of that.”
Over the years, she has shared her emotional struggles, and now she's sharing her weight-loss struggles for people “going through the pain and shame — everything that comes with weight gain.” Some of her future commercials for Jenny, the company's new shortened name, will feature her song Make It Happen. “I wrote that song from personal experience.”
The song is “so fitting because a lot of people give up hope when they have had their kids and can't lose that 20 pounds or 40 pounds, or they have gone through issues with weight their entire lives. It becomes so frustrating and debilitating that you give up.”
Carey says she had a few indulgences during her pregnancy, including sugary drinks, soul food and pizza. But she doesn't know how much weight she gained because she didn't weigh herself. “I was walking around the house, pregnant and miserable, looking at mirrors and saying: ‘Why did I put so many mirrors in my house?’ ”
After the babies were born by cesarean section, she breast-fed them for a while and followed a regular diet. Several weight-loss companies called her about working with them, Carey says, but when she spoke to the executives at Jenny, “all of whom had their own issues with weight”, she felt “a kinship with everybody I spoke with”.
The company is known for its high-profile success stories, including actresses Carrie Fisher and Valerie Bertinelli, lifestyle counseling services and packaged food eaten in combination with high-fiber fruits and vegetables. Carey also will be working with Jenny in a new venture to support and promote the American Heart Association's new initiative, My Heart. My Life.
Dana Fiser, CEO of Jenny, says, “We are thrilled to have her commitment for such a big cause for several years.” Fiser says the company hopes that the combination of Carey and its new name will broaden its appeal to younger women.
In July, when Carey was no longer breast-feeding the twins, she started on the Jenny program, ate the company's foods and was particularly fond of their soups. She says she mixed it up and did some of her own cooking, too, which is part of the program. She does mostly aquatic workouts for 45 minutes four or five days a week.
Speaking of her current weight, Carey says she doesn't go by the scale but by “my dress size. Right now I am between a 4 or 6.” She's 5-foot-9. About her weight loss, she adds, “I worked like a fiend.”
