After a big health scare, Jeanenne Darden managed to lose an amazing 22 percent of her body weight. Find out how she did it.
Before: 187 pounds
After: 146 pounds
The Lifestyle
Jeanenne Darden, a strong swimmer, had been making her way out to a
sandbar in Aruba with her six-year-old daughter riding on her back.
Then, suddenly, she started gasping for air and going under. “My friends
were 45 yards away and couldn’t hear me,” she says. “I thought, ‘It’s
over.’”
Fortunately, a friend spotted her struggling in the over-her-head water
and pulled her onto the beach. But her troubles didn’t end when she
recovered her breath. Back home in Orlando, Florida, she was diagnosed
with a severe valve regurgitation in her heart. “You are in congestive
heart failure,” the doctor said. “You must have the wrong person,”
Jeanenne says she told the doctor. “I’ve always been fit.”
Two days later, Jeanenne had open-heart surgery to repair a mitral valve
that wouldn’t close. For the second time in a week, her life had been
saved. But the trauma left severe psychological scars. The recovery was
slow and fraught with complications—like a grapefruit-sized blood clot
that required more surgery and caused extreme pain—so she stopped all
exercise. She started eating more and gained 40 pounds, making her the
heaviest she’s ever been, at 187 pounds.
Jeanenne had always been lean and athletic. She had natural childbirths
at ages 42 and 45. Even during pregnancy, her friends would say, “Gosh,
Jeanenne, your arms look amazing.” Her husband is renowned exercise
researcher Ellington Darden, Ph.D., author of the book The Body Fat
Breakthrough. The Dardens had a full gym in their home, but Jeanenne
couldn’t bring herself to use it. “I was so depressed thinking I’d never
be the same,” she says. “I love clothes, but my clothes didn’t fit any
more. I started to hate myself.”
The Change
That’s when it clicked. Jeanenne knew that it was up to her to make a
change. So she started small: This southern girl who grew up on sweet
tea stopped drinking sugary beverages and wine and drank only water.
With that change alone, Jeanenne says she felt her “fat pants” getting
loose. Next, she cut back her portion sizes and started keeping a food
diary. “Once I dialed in my discipline and saw the scale, I was
unflappable,” she says.
The Reward
In 20 weeks, Jeanenne lost 37 pounds and her protruding belly. Plus, she
fit into her old skinny jeans. Now she’s back down to 146 pounds, with
three pounds of new muscle and a body fat percentage of just 19. Five
months earlier, it had been 35 percent. Most important, Darden’s
depression has lifted. “My self-esteem is back,” she says. “I feel so
lucky to be alive.”
Jeanenne’s Tips:
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Jeanenne embraced the super-hydration ”fat
bomb” strategy from her husband’s research, drinking a gallon of ice
water a day. “I have an 18-ounce blue tumbler with a straw that never
leaves my side,” she says. “I’m constantly filling it with ice water.”
Use smaller plates. Jeanenne swapped out her normal dinner plates for
downsized ones to take the guesswork out of serving herself smaller
portion sizes. “I ate normally,” she says. “I just ate less of
everything.”
Focus on negative training. Jeanenne’s husband is a proponent of
negative training, a technique that involves doing the lowering part, or
“eccentric phase,” of a resistance exercise very slowly to result in
greater stress being put on your muscles. This really helped her kick
her weight loss into high gear.
