She Wanted to be a Hot Mom, and Lost 62 Pounds of Baby Weight

Before: 160 lbs.
After: 119 lbs.
Program Used: Weight Watchers

The last straw wasn’t a listener’s calling into San Diego’s Jammin’ Z90 FM morning radio show to cruelly comment — on air — that the once-hot DJ Nannette Digenan had really porked up. Nor did the hurtful comments of family members (“Do you really need to eat that?”) spur her to lose weight. No — Nannette’s motivating moment came at the Murrieta, Calif., community pool, about a month after she had delivered her son, Dylan, in June 2004.

Nannette, who is 4-foot-11, was wearing a maternity smock because she weighed 160 lbs. — 40 to 60 lbs. more than is healthy for a woman her height.

A buff acquaintance strolled by in a string bikini, toting her own tiny newborn. Nannette, now 28, watched her husband instinctively check out the “hot mom” and felt her heart sink. Where did her baby come from? she wondered. Nannette knew it was unusual to be that slender just weeks after giving birth. But she was also sick of feeling dumpy and insecure, and knew that her husband, Jason, 31, a lineman for San Diego Gas & Electric Co., was tired of hearing her whine that she felt fat. Nannette decided she wanted to be a “hot mom,” too.

That week, she shared her desire to slim down with her friend Valerie Harmon. Valerie, a Weight Watchers member, handed her a free-registration coupon. “I gave the coupon to her on Tuesday, and she was there on Thursday,” says Valerie, laughing.

As a nursing mom, Nannette was allowed to eat more than other women, but the pounds still disappeared. The first month, she lost 10 lbs. “As long as you eat healthy, your milk production isn’t affected at all,” says Nannette. “I nursed my baby for nine months, and he was happy — just a little gassy from all the vegetables!” In fact, nursing can be an advantage in the weight war, observes Nannette’s nurse practitioner, Nancy Mattioli. “Eight hundred to 1,000 calories a day go straight to milk production,” she notes.

Moving Every Moment

After two months’ maternity leave, Nannette went back to deejaying part-time (she still mans the mike on Sundays) and filled every spare minute with exercise. She walked in the morning, worked out with Tae Bo videos in the afternoon and did crunches and push-ups before bed. When a stranger pushed a stroller past her house, Nannette dashed out, introduced herself and asked if the woman would like a walking buddy. Together, they rolled their kids around their community for up to an hour, six nights a week.

One Hot Mom

Nannette’s biggest obstacle was guilt. Her extra pounds melted off, while Valerie, who had encountered health problems, began gaining back weight. Valerie had been “so incredibly supportive. I didn’t want to rub my success in her face,” Nannette recalls. Not to worry. Valerie didn’t resent Nannette’s success at all. Instead, she found it motivating.

By New Year’s Day 2005, Nannette hit her goal of 119 lbs. That was so surprisingly doable that she set her sights lower… and lower. By October, she settled at a healthy 98 lbs. Sticking to her program “was so worth it. It really helped my self-esteem,” says Nannette. Mattioli is ecstatic over Nannette’s results, too: “She’s going to be at much less risk for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and possibly even breast cancer.” Nannette “was so focused and so determined. I’m really proud of her,” adds Valerie.

Jason is most thrilled by his wife’s emotional transformation: “She no longer acts self-conscious or aggravated. She’s so much more enthusiastic and energetic. Not only is our relationship excellent, which Dylan gets to see, but now he has a healthy mom and dad who will be around a lot longer.” Jason also lost weight thanks to Nannette’s lean cooking. (At six feet, he now weighs 190 lbs.) He feared they might raise a “fast-food baby,” but when Dad began eating fish and vegetables, Dylan gobbled up the healthy food, too.

Weeknights, Jason watches other husbands clutching sacks full of fast food. And then he thinks how lucky he is to have a wife who cooks tasty, nutritious meals.

Nannette doesn’t take success for granted. “I’m not ‘cured,” she says. She knows she has to count calories and keep moving for life. Still, she revels in sliding into size 0 jeans, feeling confident and sexy, and running 2½ miles in 45 minutes (“I never, ever thought I’d be able to run!”).

The big payoff came last summer, when she went to the community pool wearing a ravishing red two-piece. That “hot mom” of string bikini fame? “She didn’t recognize me!” says Nannette.

Here, Nannette shares her Mom-to-Mom Diet Tips:

• Channel that anger! When Nannette’s energy flagged during exercise, she’d reflect back on comments people had made about her weight. I’ll show you, she’d think, using the put-downs for motivation. “You have to turn the negatives into positives,” she explains.

• Make the stroller your best friend. If the cupboards are calling, plop in the toddler and go for a walk.

• Don’t use a relapse to rationalize a pig-out. Catch yourself, note that everyone slips occasionally and vow to do better next time. It never pays to beat yourself up for mistakes — or let a small one become a bigger one.

• Head off temptation at the first pass. When Nannette was shopping, she knew that if she left the cookies in the store, “I’d have to resist them only once. Take them home and you have to resist them every time you want one.” source: quickandsimple.com