Before: 252 lbs.
After: 162 lbs.
Program used: L.A. Weight Loss Center

On her wedding day, Jeanne Onken, then 23, wore a size-20 wedding gown. “I was so uncomfortable with people looking at me, my mom had to give me a Valium to get me down the aisle,” she recalls. In short order, Jeanne and her husband, Ken, a police officer, had two sons — Jason, now 16, and Brennan, 13 — and Jeanne forged a successful career working for a physicians group near Milwaukee.

But Jeanne never felt comfortable in her own skin. She refused to sign her boys up for sports because, she says, “I knew I’d have to pick them up and I didn’t want my kids to be ridiculed because of me.” Instead, she’d come home from work, get into her pajamas and settle in front of the TV, while Ken cooked and served her dinner. She gobbled it up, along with a second helping, then chips and dip, popcorn, even cookies and milk. “I would pretty much eat constantly from the time I got home from work until I went to bed,” she says.

“I Weigh What?!”

In the meantime, this 5-foot-8 working mom’s weight steadily crossed boundaries she’d sworn she would never pass: 175, 200, 225. Then, last May, her sister, Tracy, who wanted to lose 25 lbs., asked Jeanne to go with her to an L.A. Weight Loss Center. “I was strictly going to support my sister,” Jeanne says. But as she listened to a staffer describe the program’s features, including one-on-one counseling, something clicked.

And when she stepped on a scale and discovered she was up to 252 lbs., the click turned into a commitment. She signed up for the program on the spot. By cutting down portion sizes and switching from junky meals to ones built around fresh produce and lean proteins, she slim-med down at a steady clip of almost 2 lbs. a week. Less than a year later, Jeanne hit her target weight: 162 lbs.

“Six Sizes Smaller!”

As dramatic as the weight loss has been — Jeanne has gone from wearing a size 22 to a size 10 — other changes have been even more profound. Not only has she signed both boys up for sports, but while Brennan is at football practice, she and Ken play tennis on the nearby courts. Nearly every other night, the two hike three miles on trails near their West Bend, Wis., home.

For the first time, the Onkens now sit down to dinner as a family, and everyone is adopting Jeanne’s healthy diet: meals like roasted fresh vegetables and chicken breasts or turkey chili. “We’re a lot closer as a family,” says Ken, 46. “We do more together. She has so much self-confidence.” And his wife looks so great, he says, he feels like “the old guy with the arm candy.” Still, there have been tough moments.

Recently, when Ken and the boys were out, Jeanne binged. “I ate so much I couldn’t fit it all into my food journal,” she says. “I had to type it up and print it out on my computer.” She sobbed when she spoke to her counselor the next day, but they moved past the tears to identify what triggered the pig-out — boredom, as well as stress over her workload.

“How I Keep It Off”

These days, Jeanne knows not to beat herself up too much. “With the type of eating habits I had my whole life, there are going to be times I slip into old ways,” she concedes. “I’ve learned that when I start binge eating, I need to refocus and do something — anything — else: walk the dog, call a friend, read a book, get on the treadmill. The important thing is to be honest about your setbacks so you can plan ways to bounce back.” Now she has the tools to do just that. “This is a whole new life,” she says. “And I will never, ever, ever, ever go back to the old life.”