Before: 184 lbs.
After: 140 lbs.
Program used: Dr. Phil

Lynne Herfel, 39, of Syracuse, Utah, was huffing and puffing to a Tae Bo tape in November 2004, when her son, Josh, now 10, marveled, “Your bum shakes just like Jell-O!” Josh thought the 184 lbs. jiggling on his mom’s 5-foot-6 frame looked cool, but Lynne, who had given birth five months before to Jaylynn, now 2, was mortified.

The comment convinced Lynne to make a 180-degree turn: Instead of buying yet another “as seen on TV” product that failed in its promise to banish her baby blubber, she sent a message-in-a-bottle rescue plea to TV. “I need help!” she pleaded in the e-mail she sent to the Dr. Phil show.

The show responded. They flew Lynne to Los Angeles and put her and four other contestants into a weight-loss challenge that required them to appear on TV in bathing suits. Tempted to bail, she placed a tearful call to her husband, Dee, 40, a pharmaceutical rep. He urged her to stick it out. “You’ve done so much for this family,” he said, “it’s time to do something just for yourself.”

Encouraged by her husband’s words, Lynne signed on to follow the plan outlined in Dr. Phil’s book The Ultimate Weight Solution Food Guide. This is how she redesigned her life for weight loss:

She created new rules

Dr. Phil recommends creating a “no fail” environment, so Lynne announced a major domestic policy change: She told her kids, who also include Kaydee, 13, and Kaysha, 4, that sugary cereals, ice cream and fatty foods would no longer be on-site. (“I’d been using the kids as my excuse to keep these foods in the house,” Lynne admits.)

She worked out while they snoozed

The Dr. Phil gospel decrees that you have to create the time to exercise. Small problem: The only time when Lynne wasn’t hampered by ankle grabbing and pleas of “Moooommmm!” was when her kids were sleeping. So she rose every morning at 5:30 a.m. to hit the gym for an hour.

She made a workout pal

Following the book’s dictate to create a “circle of support,” she approached another mom at the gym and recruited her to be her gym buddy. Becoming accountable to each other “made a big difference,” says Lynne.

She packaged her own munchies

To create even more of a “can’t fail” setting, Lynne shopped for groceries on Saturdays and spent part of Sunday cleaning, chopping and packing celery, carrots and other low-cal snacks into “grab ’n’ go” bags. (Even today, she still prepares and freezes a week’s worth of low-cal entrées every Sunday.) Having healthy options handy headed off many a junk-food binge.

At first, Lynne doubted she could make it through the day without a hamburger. Then, in keeping with Dr. Phil’s recommendation to nix negative thinking, she assured herself, “All I have to do is make it to my next meal.” You’d think that having your weight monitored by an entire nation of TV viewers might be motivation in itself, but Lynne soon realized that she wanted less to impress others than to reclaim her vitality for herself. That she did. By April 15, 2005, Lynne had lost 44 lbs. And 6-foot-2 Dee, who dreaded giving up starchy foods, had dropped 30 lbs. and lowered his blood pressure, too. The kids not only never complained — they now clamor for apple slices instead of cupcakes.

Once pure drudgery, exercise has become a passion. These days, Lynne plays volleyball and soccer, swims with her kids, skips, kickboxes and even runs. Compliments are not only constant, a local TV station asked her to audition for a low-cal cooking segment. (They chose someone else, but still, she never thought she’d be considered as a TV personality!)

Forcing off 44 stubborn pounds while juggling so many family responsibilities has given Lynne — no longer jiggly but now jiggy — “a strength I never knew I had.”